


Swear to God, This Time We're Not Kidding

by ORiley42



Series: A Wedding or Two [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Humor, Handcuffs, Happy Ending, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Occasional angst, Sequel, Stag Nights & Bachelor Parties, Wedding Fluff, Wedding Planning, honestly i don't know, lil bit of canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:24:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ORiley42/pseuds/ORiley42
Summary: The sequel to Frank & Matt’s honeymoon suite adventures: there’s romance, snarkiness, a proposal, a lot of planning by Foggy and Karen, a lot of eye-rolling by Claire and Brett, and finally… a wedding.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First off, a huge thank you to [strawberrymilano](archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrymilano/pseuds/strawberrymilano) for the support and betaing! You’re the best! *showers with rose petals*  
> Secondly, thank you to everyone who commented on Keep You Like an Oath, you inspired me to think that the story wasn’t over, and to take this ridiculous tale to new heights of improbable fluff. I love you all so much it’s UNREAL.  
> Now, without further ado, I present to you… the sequel!!!  
> (PS – a note to new readers: hello! although I would encourage you to go back and read the first story in this series, because it’ll make more sense that way, this fic can mostly be read on its own as well!)  
> (PPS – the title is taken from the episode of Lois and Clark: the Adventures of Superman of the same name…if you’ve seen it, you’ll know why)

 

They’d booked their room at The Carlyle for a week. That meant three more days – three more days of lazy sex and room service and pretending nothing outside those four walls existed, even when Frank jerked awake from blood-soaked nightmares, or when Matt screwed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples at the roar of traffic on the street below. It was just them.

And then it was time to check out, and the whole world came rushing back in despite both their best efforts at denial. Matt signed some paperwork under a fake name, they returned their room keys, and then they were picking up their bags and walking out the door.

They stood just outside the hotel, the sounds and smells of the city assaulting Matt’s senses after the relative oasis of their room. The two of them were mirror images, standing on either side of the entrance and leaning in opposite directions, pulled towards different goals and different lives. For a moment, Matt thought that they might just turn and walk their different paths, and forget that this week had ever happened.

But then Frank shifted his weight, and he was moving towards Matt, holding out something small and metallic in his hand. Hope leapt up in Matt’s chest at the movement, bouncing around his ribcage while he tried to keep his expression neutral.

That hope abruptly crumpled and died as Matt realized Frank was holding out his wedding ring.

Matt took it with numb fingers, feeling clumsy and off-balance in the discordance of taxis and barking dogs and people who just didn’t make sense.

“Is this over?” Matt asked, hoping if he kept the question simple it would mask whatever traitorous emotions tried to creep into his tone.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Frank replied.

A heartbeat later, Frank was weaving into the crowds passing on the sidewalk, leaving Matt standing alone with two wedding rings burning a hole in his palm.

Matt managed to hail a cab and successfully ignore the stupidly sharp pain jabbing at his insides. By the time he arrived home, he was fully in denial about any sort of negative emotional reaction on his part to Frank’s abrupt departure and mysterious response to Matt’s _very straightforward question_. He was, in his own estimation, completely fine and devoid of any anger over the situation. The criminals of Hell’s Kitchen unfortunate enough to come face to face with the Devil that night, however, may have begged to differ.

“What the _hell_ does ‘it doesn’t have to be’ even _mean_?” Daredevil snarled at a petty thief he’d just cornered in an alley, before breaking the man’s nose.

“It was a pretty fucking simple question,” Matt hissed at the sprawled form of the drug dealer he’d just beaten unconscious. 

“Is a goddamn ‘yes or no’ too much to ask?” he growled as he raised his fists.

“Problem with the old lady?” Turk guessed as he backed slowly away from Daredevil, hands in the air.

“Something like that,” Matt growled before clocking him.

By the end of the night, none of the city’s scum had given Matt the answers he was looking for. As the sun threatened to peek out over the skyline and Matt fell exhausted into bed, the only thing he knew for sure was that he hoped “it doesn’t have to be” meant that it _wouldn’t_ be.

~~~~~

The first day Matt walked into the office after the whole dramatic honeymoon suite misadventure, Foggy scooped up a pile of papers from the corner of Karen’s desk and smacked them into his chest.

“Is this my welcome back present?” Matt asked with a grin, fingers brushing over the unfamiliar lines of braille.

“Of sorts. It’s an annulment,” Foggy explained.

“Oh.” Matt held the papers out from his body, as if they’d suddenly developed claws.

“C’mon, Matt, you know you have to do this.”

Matt set his jaw mulishly, and though he didn’t actually say, “make me,” his expression sure did. 

“Do you really think it’s _wise_ to stay married to him, after only having known him for a week?” Foggy asked, sounding entirely too sensible for Matt’s taste.

“Well, no…” Matt conceded.

“And even if you _did_ want to be with him, is it really sensible for you to be legally bound to a guy who could manage to get in a shoot-out while picking up a gallon of milk?”

“I _guess_ not…”

“Good. Sign here.” Foggy shoved the documents into Matt’s left hand, and a pen into his right. Matt hesitated, and his pen hovered with indecision over the papers.

Foggy spotted Matt’s mournful expression and sighed, “And, someday, if you really want, you can marry him _again_ , in a _proper_ wedding ceremony. Because goddammit, Matthew, I only have one best friend and I'll be _damned_ if I don't get to do _all the best man things_.”

“That’s your real motivation for getting the marriage annulled, isn’t it Foggy?” Matt teased, signing the papers with only a modicum of unease as the logic of Foggy’s words settled in.

“Well,” Foggy sniffed, taking the freshly endorsed papers back, “it’s not like it could have _really_ counted in the first place since _I_ wasn’t there.”

Matt grinned, clapped him on the back, and didn’t disagree.

~~~~~

Matt smelled gunpowder and red peppers before he even stepped onto the roof. As he stuck his head cautiously through the door, gloved fist held up defensively, his senses confirmed what he’d already suspected. One week after they’d parted ways, Frank Castle was standing in his kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove like he belonged there.

“Well, make yourself at home, Frank,” Matt drawled as he came down the staircase, peeling off his helmet and gloves.

“I already have,” Frank shot back without missing a beat.

Matt got the feeling that he should put his foot down right that instant and make it clear that Frank was _not_ welcome to just gallivant into Matt’s home whenever he felt like it. On the other hand, whatever he was cooking smelled like real actual honest to god _food_ , and that was something that had been sorely lacking in Matt’s life for, well, ever. So, if suffering a little breaking and entering was the price to pay…

“What’re you making?” Matt asked, making a beeline for the kitchen and sticking his nose over Frank’s shoulder.

“Beans and rice,” Frank elbowed Matt until he took a few steps back, “Not fancy, but good. A complete protein, if that means anything to you. Did you realize that there was no fucking food in your place?”

“That’s not true, I have –”

“A jar of almonds and a half-empty bottle of mustard. That’s it. I checked.”

“I’ve been a little busy lately,” Matt crossed his arms defensively. “Got behind on my grocery shopping.”

“Don’t bullshit me. This kitchen’s barely been touched, I’m not sure this oven’s ever been turned on.”

“I have _definitely_ turned it on,” Matt protested. And it was the truth; he’d used the oven to make those cinnamon rolls that come in a tube just last week.

Frank paid no mind to Matt’s objections. “Taking care of your health and body should be a priority, especially in our line of work.”

“I cannot _believe_ I am getting a lecture on health from _you_.”

“ _I_ am a paragon of health.”

“You were almost tortured to death a month ago!”

“Aside from that.”

“Ugh. D’you think I could get the food without the sermon?”

“Get fucking used to it, it’s what I charge for my cooking,” Frank growled, pointing a loaded spoon threateningly in Matt’s direction. Matt pursed his lips, but his unimpressed expression quickly faded to make way for a smirk. The situation had just sparked a memory of the way Frank’s heart had thudded one night when Matt had licked ice cream off of his spoon at the Carlyle.

Matt leaned forward, sliding the spoon into his mouth and closing his lips around it, pulling back slowly. He closed his eyes with a small sound, and relished the way Frank’s heart leapt up in that familiar tempo.

“Tease,” Frank grumbled, and Matt tried to grin, but then he started to actually process the flavors on his tongue. And it was…it was really good. Not overwhelming, but not plain either, something solid and good with a spice that bit pleasantly at the back of his tongue. He hummed in surprised delight as he chewed, reaching grabby hands out for the spoon, which Frank held out of his grasp.

“So. Good food,” Frank noted. “I’ll add it to the list.”

Matt quirked an inquisitive eyebrow up at Frank while quietly making designs to possibly just steal the whole pot and make a run for it.

“Of effective ways to shut you up,” Frank explained. “Along with good sex.”

Matt shrugged lazily and grinned, not denying it. Why should he? It was true.

Frank plated up two servings and passed one to Matt, before brushing deliberately past him on the way to the table. Matt followed close on his tail, pulling his chair a little closer to Frank’s than was strictly necessary.

“Thank you for dinner,” Matt inclined his head graciously in Frank’s direction, but didn’t bother keeping a teasing note out of his tone.

“You’re welcome,” Frank replied, with “go fuck yourself” clear in every polite syllable.

Matt ducked his head, smirk turning into a goofier kind of grin at the familiarity of the banter.

They ate in companionable silence, Frank moving his spoon from plate to mouth with a kind of mechanical precision while Matt tried not to audibly ooh and ahh over the meal. It was kind of shocking how good homemade food tasted, especially after his last week of take-out and delivery. Either that, or Frank was just a _really_ good cook. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d exhibited some…unexpected talents. Matt’s mind began to wander far away from culinary trains of thought, and he couldn’t honestly say he put much effort into redirecting his mind to safer topics.

Over the past few days, Matt had been contemplating how to deal with Frank if and when he decided to barge back into Matt’s life. He’d had originally planned to keep things safe and platonic, at least until they’d established a new balance in their relationship; maybe talked about a few things and drawn some boundaries, settled a few small disagreements (and gaping moral chasms). But maybe the bay leaf fragrance spilling out of the stove-pot and into the room was acting as an accidental aphrodisiac, because Frank had barely set his silverware down before Matt was sweeping the dishes aside and doing his best to climb into Frank’s lap, crushing their mouths together and searching out Frank’s tongue with his own.

Frank growled deep in his chest and grabbed Matt’s hips hard, lifting their bodies up and out of the chair and then pinning them to the floor with his bulk. His shifted to scrape his teeth down the column of Matt’s throat, hands not wasting time as they pushed up under Matt’s shirt, sweeping and scratching down his sides.

“ _Fuck_ , Red, I’ve been thinking about you,” Frank panted, breath hot against Matt’s ear, “Every night. I can’t focus on my job, can’t focus on anything, God, I just _want_ you…”

“Mmm…I think I can do something to help with that…” Matt purred as he jammed a thigh between Frank’s and pressed up hard, punching a gasp out of him that Matt swallowed down eagerly.

“Good thing we’re still married,” Frank chuckled as he came up for breath, “Otherwise this would _definitely_ be a sin…”

The lust that had been flooding Matt’s brain receded abruptly as he remembered the stack of paperwork that had been burning a hole in his briefcase for days.

“Actually…” Matt gently pushed Frank back by the shoulders, his stomach doing painful gymnastics as he admitted, “Something about that. I have some papers for you to sign…for the annulment.”

“Oh.” Frank’s voice was flat, and when he pulled back from Matt it felt like he took all the warmth in the room with him. He sat up between Matt’s knees and Matt dragged himself up on his elbows, breath still coming fast, but now from nerves rather than desire.

“I’m sorry to just drop it on you like that, but I mean, we can’t….” Matt gestured hazily between them, and Frank stood brusquely.

“Right. I get it. Where?”

Matt stood up in an uncoordinated fumble of limbs, Frank making no move to help. He followed Matt in stony silence over to the desk, where Matt procured the papers and wordlessly pointed out the places Frank needed to sign. Which Frank did, without a second of hesitation, before slamming it back down on the desk and turning on his heel, clearly ready to stomp away without a goodbye.

Without thinking, Matt threw himself in Frank’s path, which turned out to be an unexpectedly hazardous move, as Frank had him in a chokehold ten seconds later.

“What’re you doin’, Red?” he growled, voice low and dangerous and definitely not kidding around.

“I just thought…” Matt gasped and pulled down on Frank’s arm until he reluctantly loosened his hold enough for Matt to breathe properly. “I just thought that… maybe you didn’t notice from the… _horns_ on my uniform…” Matt pressed his hips back into Frank’s, figuring any pretense at subtlety was already long gone, “but I’m not really too concerned about sin.”

Frank released him slowly, head twitching to the side as his eyes raked in silent judgement over Matt’s features. Matt widened his eyes hopefully, trying for a small smile and mostly succeeding. Frank shifted, and began to move at what felt like a glacial pace, his body aligning with Matt’s degree by degree, heat ratcheting back up between them. Their lips were almost brushing when Frank slowed to a stop, letting the tension stretch in the space between them. Matt licked his lips, and murmured, “You said it didn’t have to be over.”

“Yeah,” Frank muttered back, before finally closing the distance and kissing Matt. His arms slid down to wrap tightly around Matt’s waist, and Matt tangled his arms around Frank’s neck, deepening the kiss.

Frank pulled back just enough so that Matt could feel the smile tugging on the corner of his lips as he murmured, “The way you _taste_ is definitely a sin…”

Matt’s mouth split into his best devilish grin, and he pulled Frank down to show him _exactly_ how good sin could taste.

The next day, Matt was walking a little more slowly than usual as he came into the office, wincing slightly as he bent to prop his cane up in the corner. Foggy, who had walked out to greet him, turned around and walked straight back into his office without a word. Karen, on the other hand, began to grin like a cat who’d got the cream and said in a knowing tone, "So, I guess Frank's back?"

~~~~~

Frank cooking became a regular event because he had certain compunctions about having things like “real food” and “a balanced diet.” Matt was willing to accept these new-fangled concepts, especially if it meant he got to regularly enjoy actual homemade meals. So, Frank took to showing up in Matt’s apartment unannounced with increasing frequency, sometimes with fresh coffee (which Matt enjoyed greatly), and sometimes with bullet wounds (which Matt enjoyed a great deal less.)

Frank, as it turned out, was a mostly nocturnal creature. Matt could see the logic of this, given what Frank did, but that didn’t mean he was going to pass up on the opportunity to tease Frank when he found him snuggled up on his couch with a blanket pulled over his head at fully two o’clock in the afternoon.

“Fuck off,” Frank rasped after Matt had whipped the blanket away from his sleeping form, holding it aloft like a matador with a bull.

“No,” Matt shook his head with a smug grin, “I don’t think I will.” He gave the blanket another waggle, stepping just out of Frank’s reach when he stuck a hand out to try and grab it.

“Goddammit, how are you _not_ tired?” Frank grumbled, throwing an arm over his face to block out the sunlight streaming in the window, “If you work at that law firm all day, and then you run around in the Devil suit at night…when do you sleep?”

“Um…I kind of…don’t.”

Frank squinted out from under his forearm at Matt. “Does the expression ‘burning the candle at both ends’ mean anything to you, Red?”

“No, but I’m sure you could explain it to me, Mister ‘I staked out a drug den for three days with only a can of beans and my force of will to keep me company.’”

“Yeah, yeah…” Frank waved a bleary hand at Matt and then rolled over to smash his face into the cushions, apparently content to sacrifice breathing in favor of darkness. Matt pouted. Teasing Frank was no fun when he was too unconscious to parry back. So, with a sigh, he relented and tucked the blanket back around Frank’s hunched shoulders, even daring to drop a kiss on his temple since he seemed to have fallen back asleep.

That night, Matt was stifling yawn after yawn as they camped out on a rooftop, Frank disassembling and reassembling one of his many weapons while Matt wandered along the perimeter of the roof, head tilted and listening for sounds of distress. None, however, were forthcoming, and he was beginning to reach the conclusion that the whole city had decided to have a quiet night in.

“I’ve got this,” Frank announced out of nowhere.

“What?” Matt asked distractedly, one ear still trying to search out the noise of nonexistent crime.

“I said, I’ve got this,” Frank repeated gruffly. “You should go home, relax, get more than three minutes of sleep, for once.”

Matt turned properly towards him, incredulous. “You’ve _got_ to be kidding.”

“Nope.” Frank stood his ground. “Except for the shit you pulled, I had a solid few hours this afternoon. You didn’t. So,” he gestured vaguely with the clip of his automatic, “ _Go_.”

“I don’t think so,” Matt said, crossing his arms and planting his feet. (The fact that he was swaying a little in the night breeze was irrelevant.)

Frank heaved himself to his feet, stepping forward so he could press the barrel of his gun meaningfully against Matt’s chest.  Matt made a show of looking unimpressed.

“Go home,” Frank insisted calmly. “Get some sleep. Come back tomorrow when you’re not running on empty.”

Matt pursed his lips and didn’t give an inch. “Gee, Frank, you almost sound like you care.”

Frank made a noise almost like a snarl, which is all the warning Matt got before Frank was pulling him into a rough kiss with one hand on the back of his neck. It was hot and deep, and when Frank pulled away, Matt found himself clinging to Frank for support.

“There,” Frank said in a pleased whisper, “Consider yourself kissed goodnight. Now, do you need me to tuck you in, too?”

Matt shook his head mutely.

“Good.” Frank spun him around by the shoulders, pointing him in the general direction of his apartment, and giving him a helpful pat on the behind to start him forward. “See ya tomorrow, Red.”

And maybe it was because he really was tired, or maybe he was still a little dazed from the kiss, but either way, Matt didn’t argue.

~~~~~

After it became clear that Frank wasn’t going anywhere, Matt decided to make a concerted effort to fit him into his life and small circle of friends. Frank was already on good terms with Claire (probably better terms than he was with _Matt_ , quite honestly), and he quickly developed an odd sort of camaraderie with Karen. In fact, Karen seemed to genuinely _like_ Frank, unbothered by his difficult personality or lethal methods. To begin with, Matt was a little surprised at how she seemed to quietly agree with Frank’s logic when it came to how to deal with criminals. But upon further reflection, he realized that Karen had a similar kind of calm determination to get the job done, to do what was necessary, to make the hard call. That, combined with her natural compassion, meant that she was probably one of a very small number of people in the world that actually could understand _and_ feel sympathy for Frank Castle.

Foggy, on the other hand, was predictably less inclined to treat Frank with anything more than the most basic courtesy (and not even that, at times).

“I don't get it,” Matt lamented to him, “One moment you're mostly civil, and the next, you're at each other's throats! Why?”

“Because we don't _like_ each other, Matt. We both like _you_ so we try, but sometimes our efforts are...insufficient.”

Insufficient was a bit of an understatement.

Frank stopped by the office once evening, looking out of place and on edge. He hadn’t been to Nelson & Murdock since the day of his and Matt’s marital mischief, and he looked just about as apprehensive now.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Foggy called from his perch on the corner of Karen’s desk, where they’d been putting their heads together over some paperwork, “What brings you skulking through our humble doors?”

Frank shot a nasty look in Foggy’s direction before answering. “Matt wants to…go out to dinner,” Frank’s lip curled with distaste at those last words, like he was announcing they were going to trawl through garbage rather than have a nice meal. Granted, Frank spent a lot of his life surrounded by garbage of the dumpster and human sort, and so probably felt more comfortable in such environs.

“And Frank has generously agreed,” Matt added as he poked his head out of his office.

“If we get arrested, I’m counting on you to bail us out, Page,” Frank told Karen as he flopped down in their least rickety chair, propping his feet up on the edge of her desk. Foggy glared at Frank’s boots as if they’d done him a personal offense.

“You were given _immunity_ , Frank,” Karen pointed out, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she leaned forward to talk to him, “what would you get arrested for?”

“What do you mean me? _He’s_ the trouble-maker,” Frank jerked a thumb back at Matt, whose cell had just started to ring.

“I’ll dispute _that_ in a minute,” Matt said with a smile, pulling out his phone and holding it to his ear as he swung his door shut.

When he emerged two minutes later after having calmed down a rather overanxious client and scheduled a meeting for the next day, he found the mild atmosphere had ignited into a full-blown argument between Frank and Foggy over what, Matt couldn’t even guess.

As Matt stepped fully into the main office, Foggy jabbed a finger in Frank’s face and declared, “Frank Castle, you are a _nuisance_.”

“Really? _That's_ what you're gonna go with?” Frank hadn’t moved from his laidback sprawl, but Matt could read the signs of his body well enough to know that he was ready for a fight. “Why not pull out the big guns and call me a murderer or a psychopath…”

“Because right now, you are, quite _frankly_ , a nuisance!”

Frank narrowed his eyes at Foggy in the glare he usually reserved for those he was about turn inside out with a machete.  “Was that a _pun_ …on my _name_?” He glowered at Foggy like there was no greater sin in the world. Foggy didn’t even flinch, and Matt briefly considered moving to Antarctica. Sure, it would be cold, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with _this_.

“Alright you two, I’ve had enough.” Matt ran a hand through his hair, coming up with a plan on the fly. “I’m not sure what this is, posturing or jealousy or maybe you just plain hate each other. I don’t care! This ridiculous arguing over nothing all the time ends _tonight_.”

Foggy and Frank pinned Matt with identical incredulous glares, and Matt almost laughed aloud as he realized he’d just united them in _something_. “We, us three,” Matt gestured in a circle to their discontent little trio, “Are going to go back to my place and talk and have dinner together, and no one is getting up from the table until we’re ironed out your differences.”

“ _Matt_ ,” Foggy began, sounding utterly disbelieving, “ _You_ and _I_ haven’t even ironed out all our differences yet. And I’m pretty sure the problems I have with _him_ can’t be solved by _breaking bread_.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed, “And what happened to _our_ dinner, just you and me?” Frank shot a hostile glance over at Foggy, who returned it in spades.

“Please, Frank, it’s not like you wanted to go out anyway. So, it’s settled.” Matt clapped his hands together grimly. “We’ll have a nice night in, share a good meal, and _learn to get along like adults_.”

In sync, Foggy and Frank turned pleading eyes on Karen, who’d been watching the scene unfold with undisguised amusement.

“Oh, no way,” she shook her head, shoving her things haphazardly into a bag, “you guys are on your own.”

“ _Why_?” Foggy begged, “You told me earlier that you didn’t have plans tonight.”

“I will _make_ plans,” she resolved as she executed a hasty exit. “Have fun!” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared down the hall, her muffled giggles echoing back to them.

Matt gestured towards the door and tapped his foot until Foggy and Frank finally grumbled and began to move. They froze before crossing the threshold, from the sound of it engaged in a silent battle over who went out first. Matt sighed hugely, and then took both of them by the arm and dragged them outside, ignoring their protests.

He stuffed them both in the back of a cab (with himself in the middle, because although he might be a little crazy but he didn’t _actually_ want the night to end in bloodshed) and managed to get them to the apartment without any more yelling of insults (or puns). Matt made the executive decision to order Chinese take-out, and they waited for their food to arrive in sullen silence, with Matt’s attempts to spark conversation met only with grunts and huffs.

The food arrived, and Matt leapt out of his seat to retrieve it, tipping the delivery guy generously before hauling the boxes back to the table. Foggy, at least, perked up at the smell of food.

“Mmm…” he wafted the scent of egg rolls and fried rice like a fine wine. “Monosodium glutamate, the most important part of any diet.”

Frank scoffed, unamused, and took the container Matt handed him with clear antipathy. “I see that you’re to blame for Matt’s shitty nutrition.”

“Are you kidding me?” Foggy clutched his chopsticks so tightly they threatened to snap. “Matt would’ve _starved_ to death in college if I hadn’t been there to feed him!”

“He might’ve been better off hungry if you were feeding him solid cholesterol and –”

“Don’t you start! _You’re_ the one who drags him around at night to get shot at by lunatics –”

“Hey!” Matt shouted, slamming his palms down on the table with enough force to knock over half the take-out containers. “My bad choices are _my_ bad choices, don’t go blaming each other for them.”

“That’s true,” Foggy mused, poking his chopsticks sort of sadly into the lo mein, “you could probably get your ass kicked in an empty room.”

“Tell me about it,” Frank grumbled, “He’s got some weird 360 degree senses shit, and he _still_ can’t watch his own back.”

“Bet he blunders into all kinds of stupid shit out there, doesn’t he?” Foggy asked, raising his eyebrows knowingly.

“All the fucking _time_. It’s like he’s never even heard of recon, which is pretty fucking rich considering he can smell a rat’s fart from a block away.”

“Gives a whole new meaning to that saying about not looking before you leap.”

“ _Jesus_ , yes, let me tell you about what this asshole did just last night…”

“No,” Matt whispered to himself as they turned towards each other, both talking at nearly the same time about “when Matt decided to take on an actual freakin’ ninja, with some weird-ass knife thingy that almost cut him in half, by _himself_!” and “that time the dumbass dropped into the middle of about twenty fucking guys all packing military grade weapons, with nothing but his shitty little batons, I mean, _Christ_.”

Matt dragged a hand over his face in utter exasperation as the two finally tucked into their food, still collectively bemoaning Matt’s complete lack of any sense. Matt couldn’t help but agree with their assessment of him, as he watched his plan backfire spectacularly as two of the most important people in his life finally managed to bond… over what an astonishing _idiot_ he was.

After that dinner, though the actual number of their arguments didn't decrease, the tone grew more fraternal than homicidal. There was a sort of mutual acceptance of each other’s existence, not quite extending to respect, but more consisting of recognition of mutual interests. Not a ceasefire, but an understanding. So, although Matt would have preferred they stop nipping at each other’s heels every time they shared a room, he was greatly relieved by the fact that he no longer believed it when they threatened each other with various forms of legal retribution and dismemberment.

~~~~~

There came a point sometime mid-winter where Frank’s clothes were mixed in the dryer with Matt’s, his razor lived in the bathroom next to Matt’s, and more often than not, Matt awoke with Frank’s arm slung around his waist. One evening, Matt finally added up all this information in his mind and realized, “Frank, have you… basically moved in with me?”

Frank glanced up from where he was sprawled on the couch next to him, reading a magazine while Matt went over a pile of depositions. “Yeah, Red, for like a month now.”

“Huh.”

“You didn’t notice?”

“Well…” Matt shrugged helplessly, scratching the back of his head.

“Idiot.” Frank shook his head and turned a page in his magazine, lifting his feet up and into Matt’s lap. Matt patted his ankles distractedly and went back to work.

Frank moving in meant that Matt learned a lot of things about him. For example, Matt learned that if Frank was kissed awake on a warm Sunday morning, he could remain quiet and pliable for hours on end, moving gently and softly, voice low and pleasant in Matt's ear as he wrapped his arms around him from behind while Matt scrambled eggs. 

Inevitably, something would set him off again. A car backfiring, a glint of light reflecting off the windows like the fire from the muzzle of a gun, and his back would stiffen, his hands would clench, and the gates would slam back down over his open expression. But it was okay, because Matt knew that those few, stolen moments where Frank could be something unguarded and easy were precious, and it was an honor to share them, no matter how short lived they were.

Alas, those moments were sometimes just too few, and Frank’s acquisition of dangerous and near-fatal injuries too frequent, for Matt’s taste.

_your boyfriend brought me a few new bullets for my collection,_ Claire texted Matt late one night. He barely had time to process the meaning behind those words before his phone dinged with another message.

_don’t worry, I patched him up fine_

_Karen and I tried to convince him to stay on the couch_

_but surprise_

_that didn’t work_

_we managed to convince him to take a cab tho_

_he wanted to WALK HOME like the lunatic he is_

_that poor driver should be dumping him on your steps pretty soon_

Matt swore viciously as he fumbled for his shoes, already stretching his senses to their limits to try and pick up on the all too familiar scent of Frank’s blood leaking out of a taxi. By the time he’d stumbled downstairs, Frank’s heartbeat was ringing in his ears, reassuringly strong despite the scent of antiseptic and bandages it brought with it. The cab had barely come to a stop before Matt was yanking open the door and reaching inside.

Frank slurred something indecipherable as Matt got ahold of his arm and waist and began to maneuver him carefully out of the backseat, minding his several new bullet wounds. He noted with relief that they mostly seemed to be grazes, but there was one new hole ripped through Frank’s shoulder. To help distract from the anger roaring in his ears, threatening to deafen him, Matt focused on each individual step before him. Get Frank stable on his feet, dig in his wallet and throw a wad of cash at the driver, find the people who did this, direct Frank towards the door, beat them until they’d be lucky to ever speak again, open the door, hang them from a skyscraper as a warning to anyone else who would _dare_ , help Frank to the stairs…

Just walking into the apartment seemed to make Frank’s steps lighter. He shed his jacket, his boots, his miscellaneous weaponry, and Matt didn’t even say a word about him making a mess and getting flakes of dried blood over everything. Frank leaned into Matt’s side, seeming too relaxed for a man who was still pretty freshly shot. Though, Matt supposed that was probably due to the blood loss, and whatever pain meds Claire might’ve managed to convince him to take.

“What’s that?” Matt asked when Frank made a noise that sounded like it probably was meant to be human speech.

“You. You smell good,” Frank muttered against the side of Matt’s neck, inhaling deeply.

Well. Matt was hardly in a position to tell others off for sniffing people. “Okay, Frank. That’s nice. Let’s get you cleaned up…”

Frank went willingly towards the bathroom, never wavering more than an inch from Matt’s side. He was extraordinarily pliant, and the rather uncharitable thought briefly crossed Matt’s mind that really, Frank should get shot more often.

Matt pressed the plug down in the bathtub and then turned the water as hot as it could get, just the way Frank liked it. He stripped off Frank’s clothes in neat, methodical movements, not even copping a feel when he dragged his pants down his hips (well, not _much_ of a feel).

As the water rose, Matt helped Frank into the tub, and the fact that he didn’t grumble about being coddled was what let Matt know that he must really be hurting.

Matt kept one hand pressed against Frank’s chest as he got settled, the other holding his good shoulder, keeping his torso steady and the bandages above water. He idly rubbed his thumb over the back of Frank’s neck, instinctively targeting the complaining muscles shifting stiffly under Frank’s skin. When Frank let out a soft, appreciative moan at the gentle pressure, Matt focused his efforts, working to massage away the stress and pain clinging to Frank’s body. Matt dug in at one particularly stubborn knot between Frank’s shoulder blades, and the noise Frank made in response was nothing short of pornographic.

And that was… Nope. Frank was _hurt_. This was categorically _not_ the time for Matt to be thinking with his dick… though to be fair, they _did_ have a bit of a history combining violence with pleasure.

“ _Keep doing that_ ,” Frank groaned in a tone that brooked no argument, not that Matt was inclined to argue at the moment. Frank melted under his touch, head dropping to his chest as Matt’s fingers expertly sought out the spots of tension in his back.

“The _fuck_ are you a lawyer for,” Frank growled passionately. “You should be selling your _hands_.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like prostitution,” Matt remarked offhandedly.

“Except this is better than sex.”

“Well, now I just feel insulted.”

“You could convince me otherwise, and give this massage a happy ending.” Frank’s head fell back so he could leer at Matt, and Matt smirked down at him.

“Keep up with that attitude and this massage will have a very _permanent_ ending.”

“Mmm, you’re sexy when you’re threatening to kill me, Red,” Frank drawled, tongue flicking out to lick over his top lip, the slick sound making heat pool in Matt’s gut.

“Glad to hear it,” he shot back, just slightly breathlessly, “considering that happens on a daily basis.”

Frank laughed, and turned his head to rub his cheek against Matt’s hand, and that was the final straw on the back of Matt’s self-control.

He stood swiftly, stripping off his shirt and sending his pants and boxers quickly after it.

“Whoa…” Frank muttered, sounding a little dizzy. “Wasn’t expecting a show.” He reached out, fingers tracing clumsily along Matt’s abdomen and down the line of his hips. Matt grinned as he performed the delicate maneuver of fitting himself in behind Frank, without jarring his wounds, in a bathtub honestly not big enough for _one_ large man, much less two.

“The view is free of charge,” Matt murmured in Frank’s ear, flicking his tongue against the lobe, grin widening when Frank twitched in response.

“Mmm. What’s the full package gonna cost me?”

“Well, it’s not cheap. But I think….” Matt let his hands slip beneath the water, running dangerously low down Frank’s front, “that we can work something out.”

Frank didn’t bother with a verbal response when Matt finally stopped teasing and took him in hand, just biting down a groan and pressing back against Matt’s chest.

“How about,” Frank panted, “You take care of me…and I’ll take care of you.”

Matt was pretty sure that they weren’t just talking about handjobs.

“It’s a deal.” He smirked against Frank’s cheek, as he added, “Want me to draw up a contract?”

“Fucking lawyer…” Frank muttered, running his hand up and down Matt’s forearm in rhythm with the movement of his fingers. “I think you’ve got better things to do with your hands.”

“Mmm. What did you have in mind?” Matt inquired innocently. “More _massage_?”

“I think –” Frank choked on a gasp, grip tightening on Matt’s arm when he twisted his wrist just right, “I think you’ve got the right idea.”

Matt chuckled, feeling far more amused than he’d expected to be when he dragged Frank half-conscious and still bloody out of a cab half an hour ago. Frank turned his head as if he was seeking out that joyful noise, tilting his jaw up so he could press their lips together in a badly angled kiss. Frank tasted terrible, but Matt slid his tongue deeper, searching out the corners of his mouth as he his hand sped up and he brought Frank to the finish line.

Frank came with a sigh, head lolling back on Matt’s shoulder. It was clear with each increasingly heavy blink of his eyes that he was about a minute away from passing out, so with a quiet murmur of “Up ‘n at ‘em, big guy,” which had Frank mumbling a nonsensical response, Matt dragged Frank out of the water and to his feet. They stood dripping on the bathroom floor as Matt toweled them both dry with careful, gentle strokes around Frank’s fresh injuries. He helped Frank carefully to bed, not bothering with clothes, just dumping him naked on the mattress and tugging the sheets up to his shoulders. Frank collapsed into unconsciousness as soon as he was horizontal, exhaustion having finally won out against his iron will.

Matt just stood there next to the bed, one hand toying with the hem of the sheet as he listened to the sound of Frank’s breathing, hitching slightly as the expansion of his lungs pulled the stitches on his chest, but deep and even otherwise. With too many broken noses to count, it was a miracle he didn’t snore like a chainsaw, but instead he was almost preternaturally quiet, like even in sleep his body was trying to defend itself. But you don’t have to be on alert all the time, Matt’s stressed, hazy, over-tired mind wanted him to say, wanted him to whisper in Frank’s ear as he held him close. There are two of us now, and we can watch over each other. Together, the predators that stalk us on the streets and in our dreams can’t get to us.

Matt moved to the foot of the bed so he could lever himself cautiously up onto the mattress, settling cross-legged next to Frank. He rested his hands gently on his knees and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the city and keeping his watch over the both of them.

~~~~~

Fairly early on in their relationship, Claire had sat Frank and Matt down to give them a long talk about how they needed to take care of themselves if they wanted to actually do any good in their “sure to be unnaturally short” lives.

“You see,” she explained, with a veneer of patience over her boiling frustration, “Assuming you continue what you’re doing, you’re going to get hurt regularly. If you want to keep a full range of use, motion, and sensation in your bodies, then you’re going to have to let them heal properly before you go out and wreck yourself again. Sure, you might be able to get through a fight with a bullet in your leg, but what about the next fight, and the next? I know it’s no good trying to convince you to stop, or even take a vacation once in a while, but it’s just plain _stupid_ of you to go out there when you’re running on fumes and arrogance. So, when I tell you that you need to take a day off and _rest_ , you should _do as I say_ …okay?”

Matt opened his mouth, his argumentative lawyer hackles raised, but Frank raised an unexpected hand to stop him. “She’s right, Red, and you know it. She’s a goddamn professional, and we should listen. We’re no good to anyone if we’re too broken to raise a hand to help.”

Matt gaped openly at him, while Claire managed to retain her composure (if only just barely). Frank elbowed him in the ribs when he didn’t seem inclined to speak, prompting him, “Tell the woman thanks for her concern, already.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Matt echoed weakly.

“I will take your advice in the future,” Frank added.

“I will take your advice in the future.”

Frank nodded once, and then heaved himself up off the couch and over to the window, which he promptly clambered out of and into the night. Matt blinked, confused, at the space where Frank had just been sitting next to him. “I’m just going to…” he pointed vaguely at the window Frank had just exited through, “um…yeah.” Matt stood awkwardly, and then swung himself out the window, still looking a little dazed.

“Jesus,” Claire had said when she turned to Karen, who’d been listening to the whole affair from the kitchen, “That was a hell of a lot easier than I thought it would be.”

“That’s Frank for you,” Karen replied, coming around the couch to put a hand on Claire’s shoulder, “He’s never what you expect.”

Claire kissed Karen’s knuckles and agreed with a sigh, “You’ve got that right.”

Frank agreeing to take some semblance of proper care of himself, however, did not mean he readily accepted assistance.

As such, he awoke the morning after his most recent spattering of bullet wounds grumpy and out of sorts, snapping at even Matt’s gentlest offers of help, the soft compliance he’d shown in the bath last night entirely gone. So, Matt sighed and gave him his space as he hobbled around the kitchen, assembling his breakfast.

Generally speaking, Frank’s tolerance for help was directly correlated with who was giving it.

Claire was always allowed free reign, because of Frank’s high opinion of her medical expertise. 

Matt was usually allowed to at least be in the vicinity, unless he started fussing or lecturing, in which case Frank started throwing whatever was nearby (pillows, loose bandages, the shrapnel they'd just pulled from his side) at Matt until he shut up or left. 

Karen was, like Claire, always allowed, and wasn't even punished for fussing or lecturing, which Matt found infinitely unfair. But Frank had a serious, calm respect for her, which Matt suspected was partly the result of her being almost directly responsible for the relationship and the life Frank now had. But, he also thought it might be because Karen reminded Frank of the sort of strong, bright person his daughter could have grown up to be. So, Matt didn't voice his opinions out loud. 

Foggy was probably not allowed at Frank's bedside, but the matter had never come to a head, since he was hardly scrambling to play nursemaid. In fact, as he so indelicately put it, "Unless he is literally bleeding to death and I own the last set of bandages in this goddamn city, please do not make me see any more wounded vigilantes."

Only a few days later, after Claire deemed Frank officially fit to “go out there and fuck yourself back up again,” Frank came stomping through the door bringing a gust of air with him that carried the stink on his clothes right to Matt’s nostrils. Matt choked a little and covered the lower half of his face with both hands, breathing in the scent of own skin until he had his senses back under control again. Frank had barely set a foot on the ground level before Matt was shooing him away with his elbows, his hands still occupied in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to ward off the stench of recently dead human.

“Shower. _Now_ ,” he spat out from behind his fingers, “And throw your clothes in the dumpster. Or out the window. Or burn them. I don’t care. Just _get them out_.”

“Calm down, Red,” Frank threw up his hands in surrender and took a few slow steps back, “it’s just a bit of blood, nothing you haven’t dealt with before.”

“A _bit_ of….? Frank, you _reek_ of… _ichor_ and _gristle_...” Matt had to clap a hand back over his mouth and nose as he corralled Frank in the direction of the bathroom with the other.

“Hey, _you’re_ usually the one coming home with blood dripping off your knuckles, what’s the difference?”

Matt ignored Frank entirely, adding, “And I think…yeah, those are bone chips stuck in your boots.” Matt was already diving for the vacuum before Frank could say anything more.

“Red, I –”

“Shower!”

“It’s just –”

“ _Now_!”

Frank sighed and relented, grumbling, “Sometimes a hacksaw’s the quickest way to the truth, Red.”

Matt repressed a shudder at that, but also had to ignore a little fission of vindictive pleasure at the thought of some sadist out there getting what he deserved. Matt knew that _he_ shouldn’t play God…but it felt different when someone else tried their hand at the job.

He vacuumed the entire apartment thoroughly, then grabbed a rag and sponged what he could off the steps, using the really strong chemicals that made his eyes burn. Frank wasn’t lying, it was mostly just blood, and that wasn’t something that Matt was unfamiliar with, or that usually bothered him. It was the other things mixed in, the marrow and the bits of organs…the things inside a person that even Matt’s fiercest beatings didn’t usually bring to the surface. It was the smell and the texture of torture and death, and Matt wished the acrid chemicals could wipe away the images in his mind, and the way he felt about them. Because it wasn’t just disgust, or fear, or anger. Those would be so much easier to deal with. It was the _curiosity_ that was making his stomach turn.

Frank stayed locked in the bathroom for almost an hour. Matt cleaned the apartment within an inch of its life, tried to meditate, and gave up, sitting in the middle of his living room with his head propped up on his hands as he tried to bludgeon his thoughts into order.

Matt was still sitting cross-legged on the floor when Frank came out of the shower, smelling only of soap and wearing a fresh pair of sweatpants.

Matt held out his hand, without saying a word. Frank came closer, slowing to a stop just short of where Matt sat. Matt leaned forward, breaching the distance and tangling their fingers together, pulling him down to sit next to him. Frank’s skin was clean and fresh, scrubbed raw, and Matt felt guilt pricking his chest as he thought about how Frank had tried to scrape a layer of himself away just to make Matt feel better.

Matt couldn’t quite convince his tongue to cooperate, and was grateful when Frank finally broke the silence. “You know, I’m not really one for apologizing, Red…”

“I do know, and you don’t have to.”

“I…don’t?” Frank sounded markedly dubious.

“No. This,” Matt twirled a finger to indicate himself and Frank and whatever it was that was happening right then, “is my fault.”

Frank seemed to mull that over for a minute before concluding, “This is your martyr thing, isn’t it.”

A surprised laugh burst out of Matt. “No, it’s not. Really.”

“Hmm.”

“ _Really_.”

“I find that hard to believe, because it’s not like you _should_ blame yourself for what I do. They’re _my_ actions, and _my_ consequences, and I don’t appreciate you trying to take my sins as your own.”

Matt _did_ appreciate the way Frank was trying to turn this into a more comfortable antagonism, twist it so that Matt could be securely on the side of morality and good in a battle with Frank and his self-appointed role as executioner.  But he couldn’t accept that right now. “This isn’t about blame, Frank.”

“No? Because I know you hate what I do –”

“No, _no_ , Frank, that’s the problem. I know I _should_ hate it but I don’t.” Matt sucked in a breath but it wasn’t enough, it felt like someone had stripped the oxygen out of the air. “I take pleasure in the…the _permanence_ of the way you do things. It feels _good_. And I can live with you, and what you do, I don’t hate you for it, I honestly don’t, but _that_ …the way I feel…that’s what I don’t know if I can live with.”

Matt’s words whirled in a loop around his mind, and he huffed a bitter laugh as he realized, “Shit, that sounds… _disgustingly_ self-centered.  I can’t believe…you don’t have to listen to this…” Matt tensed as if to stand up but Frank held him down with a firm hand on his bicep.

“No, no, no, that’s not it…it’s _not_.” As Frank searched for words his calloused hand ran up and down Matt’s arm in an unconscious, comforting touch. Strange, Matt thought, that someone like Frank still had that instinct ingrained in his flesh, to soothe and console. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange at all.

“You’re not me, Red,” Frank finally said, “And you shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t _have_ to be.”

Frank lifted a hand to Matt’s cheek, and Matt could feel the fine tremors running through it. Frank pressed their foreheads together, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, like he was afraid someone might hear him and steal his words away. “Let _me_ do this, take this. For both of us. You stay good, stay pure.”

“Frank…” Matt tried not to actually scoff, “There’s nothing _pure_ about me.”

“There _is_ , though,” Frank insisted, and his voice was unfamiliar in its softness but infinitely recognizable in its unshakable certainty of truth. “I’ve seen it. I’ve _tasted_ it.” Frank’s mouth hovered against his skin, a brand Matt wanted desperately to be burned with. “So, just hold onto that. I’ll help hold back the tide. And you…you can hold onto me.”

Matt kissed him then, and it _was_ fire, a candle Matt had spent the last month running his fingers through and marveling at how he didn’t get singed. He was in the white and blue of the flame now, and it felt like it did when he put on the mask, but also when he took it off. Like crawling bloody out of a gutter, or naked into silk sheets. It was scorching, and it was home.

~~~~~

No matter how vividly he remembered it, he still couldn’t quite believe that _that_ was how they’d started out – trading punches, Matt dodging Frank’s gunfire, Frank spitting blood through the split lip Matt gave him… Though then again, listening to Frank sharpening his knives and listening to a hacked police frequency like it was the Top 40…Matt thought, yeah, maybe that was _exactly_ how it had to start.

Matt chuckled to himself as he scrubbed at a stubborn bit of tomato sauce, elbow deep in a good meal’s worth of dirty dishes.

“What’re you laughin’ about over there?” Frank called, glancing up from his work.

“Just remembering how we met,” Matt admitted lightly, “And thinking about where we are now.”

Frank harrumphed and went back to his knives, shoulders hunched like that could ward off the emotion his tripping heartbeat was broadcasting to Matt’s ears.

“You have to admit,” Matt continued, “It was a rather unconventional meet cute.”

“Don’t know what you mean,” Frank grumbled, nose practically buried against the whetstone.

Matt gave his eyebrows an incredulous raise in Frank’s direction. “You shot me in the head and chained me to a roof.”

“The beginning to any great love story.”

Matt dropped the plate he was holding.

Frank leapt to his feet on instinct at the crash of ceramic. When he found no sign of impending violence, only a cracked dish, he sagged against table. “Christ, Red, what the hell?”

“It’s just….you said…” Matt’s fingers shook slightly as he pulled the two broken halves of the plate out of the sink, setting them carefully on the countertop.

“Oh.” Frank realized what he’d said at the same time Matt realized he probably hadn’t meant anything by it.

“I wasn’t trying to…” Frank began at the same time Matt said in an overly bright voice, “It’s nothing!”

“Red, I –”

“Nothing!”

“No, it’s just…” Frank took a tentative step in Matt’s direction, hands hovering in front of him like he was trying to calm a spooked horse, “I’m not even sure that I _can_ feel that anymore, for anyone.”

Matt plastered on a smile, nodding fervently as he flicked the soap off of his hands and began to back out of the kitchen. “Right. Yeah. Of course. I’m just going to…” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder towards the roof access door, “…go and…yeah.” He turned tail and fled up the stairs, out the door before Frank could string together another faltering apology that Matt couldn’t stand to hear.

Matt marched right over to the HVAC unit, kneeling down next to the deafening roar of the machine and letting it drown out the sound of his own heart, and that of Frank’s below him. This had the downside of meaning he wouldn’t be able to tell if Frank planned on following him, but he hoped that Frank had enough sense to let him escape to the roof and hyperventilate in peace.

Because that one flippant comment had brought down a bunch of flimsily constructed walls of denial tumbling down, and now Matt was being forced to deal with a tidal wave of Big Truths, most of which were just repetitions on the same theme: he was in love with Frank Castle.

This revelation had been a long time coming. If he was being honest, it had just been biding its time since the day he’s rappelled his way into City Hall with that crazy bastard; it had lurked around corners as Frank kissed him again and again and Matt had opened his mouth and his home and his life to someone who, by all accounts, he shouldn’t be able to stand. But that didn’t mean that sitting here, sweating in the setting July sun, he didn’t feel like the world was caving in on him because he’d gone and handed his heart to someone who didn’t even know if he was _capable_ of that basic human emotion.

Matt Murdock was accustomed to his life being a hot mess, but that didn’t mean it got any easier when it burned him.

A little while later, Matt tumbled back down the staircase in a panic that when he came back, Frank and every trace of him would have somehow been erased from his home, that Frank would have packed up and rode off into the sunset without a goodbye. But despite Matt’s fears, Frank was still there when he returned; waiting, not trying to say anything. He just pulled Matt into a toe-curling kiss and then pushed him down into the mattress, his body saying things Matt wanted desperately to hear. It wasn’t as much as he wanted, but Matt thought it could be enough.

A few days later found the two of them in bed, Matt reclining lazily against the pillows, feeling pleasantly achy and content. Frank was licking idly at the scars on Matt’s chest when he paused, his breath hitching in the tell-tale way it did when he was about to attempt rational, honest communication (and was finding the idea rather daunting).

“You know, Red…” he began slowly, thumbs rubbing gently on either side of Matt’s ribcage, “I said before that I’m not sure I know _how_ to…to _love_ anymore. I don’t know if I can feel that.”

“Yeah.” Matt felt a lot less content now, his chest tightening at the prospect of what _must_ be a denial of emotion, an impending rejection of any sort of reciprocity on Frank’s part for the way Matt felt about him…

“But…if I could…if I _did_ feel that, if I was _able_ to feel that, right now….I would feel that for you. And no one else.”

Matt went utterly still, the gentle circling motion of Frank’s fingers the only thing that felt totally real at that moment. It took almost a minute, but after a few consecutive waves of confusion and shock and elation rolled over him, Matt’s lips split into a massive smile, his cheeks rising painfully high as his eyes squished nearly shut with the force of his joy.

He grabbed Frank’s face in both hands and tugged him up until he could press their foreheads together, before telling him in a rough, jubilant whisper, “I love you too, Frank.”

~~~~~

As the days and nights fell away since they said their I love you’s (or what passed for such in Frank-speak), Matt began to feel that there was something he needed to do, someone he needed to talk to. It was only when Frank stomped in the door smelling like lilies and granite that Matt realized where he needed to go.

He went to Karen who easily found the address, printing it out in braille for him and handing the slip over with a sympathetic squeeze of his hand. He left the office, went around the corner to buy a dozen roses from the florist there, and then hailed a cab.

As it turned out, he didn’t even need the specific location in the graveyard that Karen had given him. He’d memorized where they were, how many rows in, how many spaces over. But once he passed through the somber iron gates, it was easy enough to follow the remnants of Frank’s scent across the grass to three graves, all in a row by themselves under a silver oak.

Matt had been uneasy on the taxi ride over, but that was nothing compared to how he felt now. His heart pounded and his head threatened to spin; when he reached the shade of the tree he dropped to his knees before they could give out on him. This was sacred, hallowed ground, and he felt ill just by daring to step foot on it, he, who didn’t belong there.

With shaking hands, he reached out to touch the words carved deep in the stone. He let his fingers trace over every letter, feeling each one out like it a task he was honor bound to fulfill. M-A-R-I-A, it felt almost like penance, L-I-S-A, but what sin was he paying for, F-R-A-N-K, maybe he wasn’t here to atone.

At that moment, as his fingers scraped over the first beginnings of moss encroaching on Frank Junior’s little gravestone, he realized why he’d really come.

“I’ll take care of him for you, I promise.” He whispered the words into the wind, leaning so close to Maria’s grave his lips nearly brushed the stone.

A breeze blew gently through the branches of the tree above him, reaching down to caress his cheek. If he let his imagination go, the whistling of the leaves almost sounded like a woman’s voice. He breathed in the summer air and let it flow through him, washing away his worries and doubts. He set the roses he’d brought against Maria’s grave, tugging out one blossom each to lay against Lisa and Frank Jr.’s.

Then he stood and walked away, secure with the permission – the blessing – he hadn’t even known he was searching for.

~~~~~

“Are you going through my stuff?” Matt asked one afternoon, hearing the rustling of papers on his desk as he dried their lunch dishes.

“Yes,” Frank replied without an ounce of shame.

“Any particular reason?”

“Curious.” Frank pulled open a drawer and peeked inside. “Bored.” He slammed the drawer shut.

Matt was about to shoot back something along the lines of “Feel free and relieve me of dish duty if you feel that way,” but the words died in his throat as Frank pulled a small pouch out from where Matt had safely stashed it away. Frank’s heartbeat stuttered, and Matt’s followed suit.

“You kept them?” Frank’s voice was almost a whisper as he carefully deposited the two gold wedding bands on his palm.

“Well, yeah, I mean…” Matt adjusted his glasses, shifting his weight nervously, “What was I supposed to do, chuck them in the Hudson?”

“I don’t know…” Frank held the rings up to the light, inspecting them. Matt knew he wouldn’t find any imperfections, because Matt had taken to polishing them regularly. Just because. “I guess I just didn’t figure you’d still have ‘em. Should’ve guessed though,” he tossed a smirk over his shoulder at Matt. “You are a sentimental son of a bitch.”

A disbelieving sort of laugh punched out of Matt as Frank continued to smirk, his sarcastic expression belying the care he took as he carefully put the rings back where he found them.

“Well, if you’re so bored,” Matt drawled, “I’m sure the bathtub needs scrubbing. Or you could vacuum, or do laundry...I know for a fact that you’re out of shirts without bloodstains.”

“The bloodstains give ‘em _character_ ,” Frank bantered back easily, but Matt thought he detected a note of detachment in his voice, like his mind was on something else.

It wasn’t until later that night (technically, early the next morning), when Frank returned from his nightly activities with a few shallow cuts and bruises that Matt found out what that something else was.

“It’s been eleven months,” Frank announced as Matt grabbed their sizable first aid kid and began rummaging in it for disinfectant and bandages.

“Since…?” he prompted distractedly.

“Since we got married.”

Matt’s head shot up and he broke into a teasing smile, “And to think earlier, _you_ were making fun of _me_ for being sentimental.”

“Shut up. I know we’re not married anymore –”

“What a _stunning_ deduction –”

Frank grabbed Matt’s wrist where he was trying to dab at Frank’s wounds with a cotton swab. “Would you just _listen_ to me, for Christ’s sake.” Matt blinked at the gravity in Frank’s tone, and then nodded meekly.

“Alright.” Frank loosened his grip on Matt’s wrist until he was just holding it gently in the palm of his hand. “It’s just that, the thing is… I’m gonna do something sooner or later, probably sooner, that puts me right back on that Most Wanted list. That’s just a fact.”

Matt mmm’ed his agreement mildly.

“So, if we wanted to tie the knot…for real this time…it should probably happen, well, sooner.”

Matt froze for a moment, before reaching up and taking his glasses off so his attempt at an incredulous stare would be unmistakable. “Are you… _proposing_ to me?”

“So what if I am,” Frank replied with a defiant jut of his chin.

“How is it even _possible_ that this proposal is even less romantic than the last?”

“There wasn’t really a proposal, last time.”

“No, it was more of an executive decision by Karen.”

“Yeah. At least I’m not bleeding out on your couch this time.”

Matt gestured pointedly towards the growing bloodstain under Frank’s elbow, blooming more with every drop from the shallow cut in Frank’s arm.

Frank growled something under his breath and rubbed at the stain, likely just making it worse. “Fine, Red, so I owe you a new couch. If I buy you one, will you just say yes?”

“A new couch _and_ a new bed. I still can’t get the stench of seawater out of it from when you decided to jump my bones after getting thrown off the pier.”

“That was _one time_.”

“Is my hand in marriage worth one goddamn trip to Ikea to you, or not?”

Frank grabbed Matt’s hand roughly and looked away, like if he couldn’t see it then it didn’t count as holding hands. “Dammit, Red, you’re worth a lifetime of trips to Ikea.”

“In that case… _yes_.” Matt tackled him down to the couch, Frank’s blood smearing rather spectacularly across the cushions as Matt pressed their bodies together, kissing him fiercely.

Matt didn’t care about the blood stains. He was getting a new couch. And, apparently, a not-so-new husband.


	2. Chapter 2

Matt came into the office next day bursting with the news, but the second he stepped through the door his courage deserted him. What if they reacted badly? Karen liked Frank well enough but that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted Matt to _marry_ him. And Foggy….Foggy had only just learned to _tolerate_ Frank, what if he flipped out – 

“Hey, buddy!” Foggy called cheerfully when he spotted him, “How’re you doing?”

It took Matt a minute to realize that was a question he was expected to answer. “Oh! Good, fine, yeah.”

“Okay…” Foggy squinted at him in what Matt knew to be his daily checking-Matt-out-for-fresh-wounds look. “And how was your _night_?”

“It was, ah, good. Good, yeah, mmhmm.” Matt rubbed his thumb along the ring burning his finger, his left hand ensconced safely out of sight in his pocket.

“Anything exciting happen?” Karen probed with a curious glance at his nervous fidgeting.

“Not really I just…” Matt twisted the ring on his finger one last time before pulling his hand out of his pocket and holding it up awkwardly, “I got engaged.”

Karen squealed so loudly the windows threatened to shatter. Foggy exhaled so deeply it was a wonder his lungs didn’t implode.

“How did it happen, tell me everything….” Karen almost tripped in her excitement to get out from behind her desk, clutching at Foggy’s arm to keep her balance as she made her way to Matt’s side, taking his hand and inspecting the ring.

“Um, well, there’s not much to tell. He basically said we should get married before he gets arrested, and then he said he’d buy me new furniture to make up for bleeding on all of mine and…yeah. Now we’re engaged.” Matt shrugged. Karen awwed. Foggy sighed.

“Thanks for the rings, by the way,” Matt said to Karen with a shy smile, “It was pretty handy to just have them around, ready to go.”

“Aww, you’re so welcome.” She squeezed his hand tightly, still almost vibrating with excitement.

“Congratulations, Matt,” Foggy piped up without preamble, turning abruptly towards Matt and stepping forward with purpose.

“Really?” Matt asked tentatively, grimacing in preparation for a solid dressing down about his choice in life partners.

“Yeah, asshole, congratulations, _really_. Just because I don’t _entirely_ approve doesn’t mean that I’m not happy that _you’re_ happy…you _are_ happy, right?”

“I am,” Matt confirmed with a slightly dazed grin.

“Then I’ll get over myself, and in the meantime…congratulations!” Foggy threw his arms out with exaggerated delight, and Matt laughed, pulling him in for a hug. After a moment’s thought, he disentangled an arm so that he could pull Karen in too.

As they leaned back, Matt patted Foggy’s shoulder and remarked, “You don’t actually seem very surprised? By my kind of _sudden_ engagement?”

“Why would I be? It’s been pretty clear he was gonna be sticking around for good, since…well. Since the _last_ time you got married. So, yeah, I kind of expected it. Hell, just last week I updated my will in his honor!”

Matt’s shoulders dipped down sadly as he muttered, “Don’t say things like that, Foggy…”

“All I’m saying is, I’d _better_ be your best man this time, or you won’t be getting my sweet record collection after I bite it.”

“Well, in that case…” Matt rolled his eyes but smiled widely as he asked, “Franklin Percy Nelson, would you do me the honor of being my best man?”

“Matthew Michael Murdock, I _would_.”

“And Karen, would you be the maid of honor? Frank would never say it, but he doesn’t want anyone other than you.”

“Yes, absolutely!” Karen let out another happy little squeal and bounced forward to wrap Matt up in another hug. “Oh! Can I tell Claire?” she asked excitedly, pulling back.

“Of course,” Matt replied, as Karen stepped out of the circle of his arms to be replaced by Foggy, who squeezed Matt so tightly he lifted him up on his toes.

Karen finished her text with a final tap, perching on the corner of the desk as Foggy released Matt and took a step back, crossing his arms and settling himself beside Karen on the edge of the desk. Matt suddenly got the feeling that the phase of congratulations was over, and the interrogation had begun.

“So? What are your plans?” Karen smoothed her skirt and procured a notebook, tapping a pen against the page, “Got any ideas for what kind of wedding you want?”

“Uh…I thought…” Matt blinked as he tried to think up what a ‘kind’ of wedding would be. He was pretty sure ‘Catholic’ wasn’t the answer they were looking for. “Just a, um…a small ceremony at my church…”

“And…?” Foggy prompted.

“Well…” Matt racked his brain for what else a wedding might entail. He’d only been to the one, as Foggy’s guest to a cousin of his’ wedding, and they’d mostly gone for the open bar. As a result, Matt remembered very little of that wedding. “You’ll be there…and I’ll be there…Frank will be there, obviously…and we will…wear nice clothes?”

“ _Matt_.” Foggy sounded pained. “You _have_ to have a _real_ wedding. The whole thing. With a bachelor party and a reception and flowers and a big stupid cake and everything.”

“…why?”

“Because you only get married once!” Matt had barely opened his mouth to point out that _uh, no, actually_ , before Foggy was waving his hands and correcting himself, “Ok, twice, you know what I mean!”

“Foggy…” Matt tried not to laugh, because it was clear that this meant something to his best friend, “Frank and I aren’t looking for a party. We don’t want this to be a big deal.”

“But it _is_ , Matt!” Karen jumped in, “And besides, weddings aren’t just for the people getting married. They’re for their friends and family to be there, all together, showing their support.” Foggy nodded firmly beside her, and Matt could feel himself losing the battle.

“I don’t really have the time for –” he tried to protest.

“That’s fine,” Foggy cut him off, “Karen and I’ll take care of the planning and details. It’s not like you’d be any good at making artistic judgements anyway.”

“But I don’t have the money –”

“I’m sure we can figure something out,” Karen assured him firmly.

Matt gaped at them for a minute, before realizing, “It’s happening again. You’re doing this to me, _again_ , telling me what to do with my life, except now there are _two_ of you.”

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed easily.

“Pretty much,” Karen echoed. “I don’t see why you’d be upset by that, considering how well it turned out last time.”

“ _Last time_? Last time ended with me and Frank using a grappling hook to rappel onto the roof of City Hall!”

“ _Exactly_!” Foggy replied with exuberance, “Like Karen said, it turned out _awesome_.”

“Well…I…I’ll have to ask Frank!” Matt hit on that obvious excuse with great relief.

“Ok, ask him,” Karen said blandly. Matt blinked, and then reached for his phone slowly, sensing a trap. He hit the speed dial for Frank’s burner-phone-of-the-week, and put it on speaker.

“What?” Frank answered with his customary gruffness.

“Hey, it’s me. Uh, I just told Foggy and Karen that we…that we’re, you know…” Matt hadn’t really said the actual words to Frank, and suddenly that seemed like kind of a big deal.

“That we’re gettin’ hitched, yeah, speed it up Red, I’m watching a deal go down at the docks and I’m gonna have to move in a minute.”

“Right, I just wanted to ask you…what do you think about Foggy and Karen planning our wedding?” God, the question sounded even more ridiculous out loud.

“I think, better them than me.”

“You don’t want to, I don’t know, _keep it low-key_?” Matt intoned significantly.

“What do you think they’re gonna do? Hire a sky writer? Organize a parade?”

“No, but they’re gonna make us… _do_ things. There will be flowers. A dinner. A _bachelor party_.”

“Oh, the horror,” Frank deadpanned. Foggy muffled a laugh.

“C’mon, Frank,” Matt whined, getting a little desperate, “don’t you think it’s _frivolous_ or something?”

“Of course it is, weddings are supposed to be. So shut your trap and let your friends do something nice for you.”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be on _my_ side,” Matt pouted, crossing his arms and ignoring the self-satisfaction coming off of Foggy and Karen in waves.

“I am. And so are _they_. So settle down, tell the Blonde Squad thanks, and let them go to work.” Frank ended the call unceremoniously, leaving Matt with a dial tone and two very smug friends.

“So, it’s settled,” Karen declared. “Operation: Wedding is officially a go.”

Foggy reached out to kindly pat a somewhat hopeless looking Matt on the arm. “Leave this to us.”

~~~~~

When Matt came home, he found Frank still seeming entirely unconcerned about the news that his and Matt’s wedding now entailed more than a few exchanged words and maybe some champagne.

“I really thought that you’d be less than thrilled about this whole…thing,” Matt announced as he set his suitcase down and loosened his tie.

Frank shrugged, the overly choreographed expression of indifference lost on Matt, who could hear Frank’s slightly elevated heartbeat.

“What can I say? I like weddings.”

“Really?” Matt asked, letting his skepticism radiate freely.

Frank grunted, and continued to slouch in his chair, thousand-yard-staring at the opposite wall. Matt thought he was going to have to drag this out of Frank the way he had to with everything else, but was pleasantly surprised when Frank continued speaking without further prompting.

“Well, it’s not like I can give you much else in the way of a normal life, the least I can do is give you this. Something good, a milestone. Something to remember.”

Matt froze, thrown by the unexpected level of sincerity and emotion in Frank’s words. Usually it took hours and either some incredible sex or really intense violence to crack Frank’s façade of indifference.

“That is… _incredibly_ sweet of you. Do you need to go kill something to make up for it?”

“Yes,” Frank grunted shortly.

“Well, before you go…” Matt began conversationally as he made his way across the room, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it on the back of the couch before climbing smoothly onto Frank’s chair and straddling his hips. “Here’s a little something for the road,” he murmured against Frank’s lips, before parting them with his tongue and sinking deep into his mouth. He dragged his fingers through Frank’s short hair, scratching down the back of his neck and then smoothing across his shoulders.

Frank’s hands unerringly found their way to his ass, squeezing hard and kneading until Matt was gasping against his mouth. Minutes passed, and Frank didn’t seem to be going anywhere, but some of their clothes certainly seemed to be trying to. Matt’s button down was pulled half open, his tie still around his neck but with the end now wrapped firmly in Frank’s fist. Frank’s own shirt was rucked up above his ribs, and Matt’s hands were slipping underneath to tease across his chest.

This very pleasant turn to their evening was interrupted by a banging on the door. Matt pulled back and rested his forehead against Frank’s, while Frank gave his ass a mutinous squeeze. The ruckus was repeated when no answer was made, followed by a shout: “If you guys are fucking in there, button it up, we have a wedding to plan!”

Matt chuckled at that, before smiling sweetly at Frank and murmuring, “Did I forget to mention Foggy was coming by?”

Frank’s hands slipped regretfully off of Matt as he pushed him to his feet and stood up after him. “I guess that’s my cue to leave…” Frank tried to slip away but Matt locked his hands around Frank’s biceps.

“Uh uh, you are _not_ leaving me alone with him. Not when this _wedding_ stuff is _your_ fault.”

“I’m regretting this already,” Frank muttered.

Matt swatted his side. “Then you should have backed me up earlier.” He pointed fiercely down at the chair they’d just vacated and waited until Frank flopped back into it with a sigh, before going to the door and flinging it open.

Foggy bounced inside moments later with his laptop already out and open in one hand, and a six-pack of beer in the other. He marched past Matt and into the living room, with Matt trailing behind.

“I have inspiration,” Foggy announced, raising the laptop and almost dropping it, making Matt wince and make an abortive movement to save the poor machine, “and libations!” He held the beer aloft proudly and Frank heaved himself up to snatch it from him, pulling out a bottle, twisting the top off, and downing half of it in one go.

Foggy muttered something about “vigilantes, drinking on the job” as he bustled past to set his things on the coffee table, but Matt thought Frank had the right idea. When Frank wordlessly held out the rest of the bottle to Matt, he only dithered for a moment before giving in, grabbing it, and emptying it.

“So, Foggy, what’ve you got?” Matt asked, handing the bottle back to Frank who quickly exchanged it for a fresh one.

“ _Well_! Let me tell you!” Foggy spun around, laptop still teetering wildly on its perch on his elbow, “Weddings are really complicated! There’s so much stuff! Venues and menus and flower arrangements and color schemes!” Foggy pulled a sheaf of paper out of the bag on his shoulder, brandishing it in Matt’s face.

“Foggy. Please tell me you aren’t trying to _show_ _me_ color schemes.”

There was a beat of silence, and then a rustle of paper as Foggy swung the papers away from Matt and towards Frank.

“Not a chance, hotshot,” Frank grumbled, shoving Foggy’s hand away, “I don’t know the difference between lavender and mauve or any of that shit, and I don’t plan on learning now.”

Foggy squinted at him suspiciously. “And yet, the fact that you know those _very specific_ color names speaks to the contrary.”

Frank’s responding silence was distinctly guilty and he took a long pull of his beer, avoiding looking at either Foggy or Matt.

“Alright, Foggy,” Matt tried not to laugh, “Leave the man and his aesthetic knowledge alone. What do you want to talk about that _doesn’t_ involve my absent visual sense?”

“Okay, where to start! The guest list, the location, the tuxes, the dinner –”

“Uh, Fog?” Matt raised a hand to gently interrupt, “I hate to remind you, buddy, but we have no money.”

“Love knows no financial bounds, Matt!” Foggy proclaimed fervently, throwing his arms in the air.

Matt was about to contest this assertion when Frank cut in, “If I give you the cash to back this shit, will you let me leave?”

Foggy’s hands fell to his sides and he shot an appraising glance at Frank before replying in a measured tone, “…Yes.”

“Right,” Frank grunted, before rattling off some account numbers and passwords to Foggy, who frantically scratched them down on his notes. “There you go. Don’t spend it all on flowers, I’ll need to buy more ammo eventually.” And with that, Frank stomped off.

Foggy threw himself eagerly down on the couch, tapping furiously at his keyboard and logging onto the website for Frank’s bank. As the page loaded, he whistled under his breath.

“Wow, Matt, this is…this is actually a lot of money. Where did he get this much money.”

“Well, there’s whatever he got from the army. All the money he’s not gonna use for retirement. The, uh… the life insurance.”

Foggy winced. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Also I think he sometimes robs criminals of their ill-gotten gains to use it against them,” Matt added as an afterthought.

Foggy made a pained nose as his fingers wistfully stroked the numbers on the screen. “Uh…right. How about I just…don’t think about that.”

“It usually works for me,” Matt sighed, plopping down next to him.

“Well, since we’re already in the feeling-vaguely-shitty part of the evening…” Foggy began, making Matt tense up, “We might as well address the fact that you probably shouldn’t actually get married.”

Matt’s hands balled instinctively into fists as he readied for a fight, but Foggy waved his arms before Matt could open his mouth. “Just hear me out! I don’t mean you shouldn’t marry him, just don’t _marry_ him.”

“Well, thanks for clearing that up,” Matt gritted out icily.

“It’s just that legally he’s, well, he’s cleared of all criminal charges _for the moment_ , but I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time before a camera catches his good side, or he leaves some blood at a crime scene –”

“He’s good at what he does, Foggy, he’s not an amateur,” Matt tried to argue, though he was already half convinced of Foggy’s point.

“I know, trust me, I _know_. But it’s just a matter of probability: if he keeps doing what he does, which we both know he will, then sooner or later, he’s gonna be a wanted man. And you don’t want to be legally tied to him when the cops come calling.”

“So, what are you proposing?” Matt kept his tone level, checking his temper and reminding himself that Foggy only had his best interests at heart.

“I propose that you don’t get _legally_ married, as in, fill out the application and file for a license, and get your marriage on the New York legal record – and in the crosshairs of every cop that we know will eventually be looking for Frank. But, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have an _unofficial_ ceremony at your church, so you’ll be married in the eyes of God, or whatever, which is what really matters to you, right?”

“I’m a lawyer, Foggy, the law matters just a little bit to me too,” Matt retorted peevishly.

Foggy stared at him before replying incredulously. “Do I need to go get the Devil suit out of the closet and beat you over the head with it?”

“No,” Matt shrank down in the couch cushions, suitably chastened, “I get your point.”

“Good, so we’re agreed. Nice, non-legally-binding marriage for the two vigilantes. Now, let’s talk about the honeymoon. I looked it up, and there are some pretty nice places out there that don’t have extradition treaties with the US, which, considering your husband-to-be’s murderous proclivities, is probably an important factor…”

~~~~~

By the time Frank came swinging through the roof access door later that night (earlier the next morning, really) Foggy was long gone, and Matt was dozing lightly on the couch. He blinked awake at the sound of Frank’s return and shuffled upright, stretching and yawning.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” Frank drawled, “Did you two figure out most of that wedding crap, then?”

“Ah, well…sort of.”

Frank paused in stowing his gear, and Matt shuffled his feet guiltily.

“ _Sort of_ …?” Frank echoed ominously.

“Well, we figured out _some_ things. Foggy described some very lovely pictures of islands where we could flee from the law, if the situation demanded it.”

Frank sighed, and finished dumping his things in the bin Matt had assigned as the home to all firearms, bombing materials, and blood-soaked items Frank chose to drag home with him. “Let me guess, you got a little sidetracked?”

“We may have gotten distracted by…the Internet.”

“The _whole_ Internet?”

“Well, the wedding adjacent bits of it. Did you know that there are more than _two million_ weddings per year in the US?”

Frank rolled his eyes hugely and stomped over to collapse on the couch next to Matt, who was still eagerly spouting random wedding trivia, “And did you know that most weddings cost more than $20,000? Don’t worry though, I’m sure Foggy and Karen will come up with a much more conservative budget.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Frank muttered dryly. “So, let me get this straight. I went and staked out a target for six hours, found some mooks and followed them halfway across the city to their base, and then came _back_ here…and all this while, you did what exactly?”

Matt scoffed rather unconvincingly.  “We did plenty! We…we… we picked a date! Saturday, August 27th,” Matt announced, pleased.

“Hmm. That’s coming up pretty fast.”

“Yeah, but as Foggy put it, the longer we wait, the higher the chances are that one of us will get offed by a supervillain, and then he’ll have put all this effort in for nothing.” Matt grinned fondly, like the idea was laughable instead of disturbingly possible.

“ _Well_ , we wouldn’t want to _waste his time_ ,” Frank muttered, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes.

Matt crossed his arms and pursed his lips. “You know, Foggy _is_ my best friend. It wouldn’t kill you to show a little respect for him.”

“Hey, I respect him!” Frank protested without opening his eyes or lifting his head off the back of the couch.

Matt made a sound of disbelief and raised an eyebrow.

“I do,” Frank insisted. “Sure, I think he’s kinda soft and a little ridiculous, but he’s also really fucking smart, and he makes _you_ happy, so, that’s enough for me.”

Matt’s frown turned up into a smile, and he scooted forward to flop onto Frank’s lap, forgoing any pretense of sitting on the couch.

Frank’s eyes flew open, and for just a moment, a soft smile played around the corners of his mouth before he banished it. Matt paid his perennial grumpiness no mind, leaning forward to nuzzle interestedly at Frank’s neck. Frank leaned further back to allow him more room, and muttered, “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure how soft Nelson really is. Pretty sure he isn’t afraid of me anymore.”

“Well, he knows you only hurt bad people, so he doesn’t have to be concerned.”

Frank harrumphed. “Please, did you see him try and shove _color schemes_ under my nose? Those are not the actions of a good man.”

“No, I think you’re just upset that you can’t make him quake in his boots with a glance anymore. You got a kick out of that.”

“Well, I don’t have a lot of fun in my life. Gotta take it where I can get it.” 

“Hmm. Am I not fun enough for you?” Matt pushed his bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout, and Frank leaned forward to suck it in between his own. When he pulled back a minute later, he murmured into Matt’s mouth, “Nah, you’re no fun at all.”

“Well, that’s too bad, considering you just signed up to be stuck with me till death do us part.”

Frank’s breath caught in his chest, and Matt’s senses latched onto it like it was a splinter in smooth lacquer. He still wasn’t good at reading Frank, not when it came to emotions; it probably had something to do with how _Frank_ was barely able to understand how he was feeling most of the time. But whatever was going on with him now…it made Matt nervous.

“What is it,” he stated more than asked, putting a hand on Frank’s jaw so he couldn’t look away.

Frank half-heartedly tried to turn his head aside anyway, but Matt held firm and he quickly folded. “I was just thinking…have you really thought this through? You know, us? I kinda just dumped it on you and maybe you said yes before…I don’t know.” Frank tried to shrug it off like his words were unimportant, but his heart told a different story. “ _I’ve_ thought this through…have _you_?”

“Yes,” Matt replied, with all the confidence of a man who’d never thought anything through in his life, and didn’t see why that had to change now.

Frank saw right through him, and cautioned, “Because if you haven’t, you probably _should_. And maybe don’t go booking a chapel anytime soon.”

Matt settled a hand on Frank’s shoulder to steady himself as he leaned back, angling his face towards Frank in an approximation of eye contact as he asked carefully, “Is this your way of saying you’ve got cold feet?”

“No, that’s not –”

“Because if you wanted to hit the brakes on this, I wouldn’t be angry –”

“Christ, Red, _no_. I just wanted to be sure _you_ were going into this with your eyes open…metaphorically speaking.”

Matt’s head fell back in a laugh at that, and Frank relaxed underneath him as he continued, “I _really_ want this to happen. I wasn’t even sure I _could_ want anymore… until those nights with you back in that goddamn hotel room. So, don’t doubt it. Don’t doubt me.”

Matt nodded easily, believing Frank even though he still couldn’t always decipher his heartbeat. “Okay.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Frank muttered, “You really wouldn’t have been mad if I wanted to put it all on hold?”

“Are you kidding? I would’ve been pissed as hell. But, I’d forgive you. I’ve forgiven you for worse.” Matt tried for a smile, but it didn’t seem to take.

“Maybe that’s part of the problem, Red. Maybe I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life trying to forgive me.”

“It’s a two-way street, Frank. Maybe _I_ hope that you’ll be alright spending the rest of your life trying to forgive me.”

“The hell do you need forgiveness for? And don’t start talking about your Devil bullshit, cause we both know I don’t give a fuck about that, except that I still think your methods could be a little more permanent.”

“Well…I did promise Foggy we’d go with him to a cake tasting next week.”

“…Are you messing with me?”

“Unfortunately, no. But, I _am_ testing your forgiveness.”

Frank sighed and pulled him into a kiss. “You really are.”

~~~~~

Foggy took on a slightly manic glint in his eye as the days wore on, and he seemed to fall deeper and deeper into web forums, muttering things about linens and centerpieces under his breath. Karen was calmer overall, but Matt also got the feeling she was egging Foggy on.

Foggy began to develop a bad habit of calling Matt and Frank at all hours of the day, and increasingly inopportune hours of the night.

Matt had a rather awkward moment where he was trying to beat some information out of a low-level criminal when he felt the buzz of his phone, the burner one that only a few people had the number to.

He twisted his victim into a headlock and flipped the phone open.

“Matt!” Foggy sounded chipper, and not at all like he needed rescuing.

“Are you alright?” Matt asked to confirm.

“Oh, I’m fine, I just have a question about the wedding –”

“Fo– dammit,” Matt took a deep breath. “This phone is for _emergencies_.”

“This _is_ an emergency, I need to know: do you prefer chicken or beef? I’m trying to start planning the reception menu.”

Matt paused, tightening his grip on the thug’s neck idly when he tried to squirm away.

“Which one’s cheaper?” he finally asked.

“Matt. Buddy. You’re missing the point, here. This is about romance, not finance.”

“Yeah, well it’s not _your_ fiancé’s money you’re spending, is it?”

“You’re right. I should ask Frank.” The line clicked and Foggy was gone before Matt could explain that _no that wasn’t what he meant_. Oh well, he decided, as he grabbed the lowlife by his shirtfront and slammed him against the lid of a dumpster. Foggy had gotten surprisingly good at dealing with Frank, he’d be fine. The more relevant question was: could Frank deal with Foggy when he had wedding fever?

Across town, the Punisher blew the face off of a human trafficker. He turned his semi-automatic on his next and last victim for the night, a slimy little rat of a man who was trying to make a run for it but kept slipping on his colleagues’ blood. Frank sent a spray of bullets in his direction, following him at a more sedate pace. The man fell and Frank nosed the shredded corpse over with the toe of his boot.

He was patting the body down for anything useful when his phone buzzed deep in one of the pockets of his thick leather jacket. He pulled it out, glared at the caller ID, and rolled his eyes when he recognized the number.

“What?” Frank snapped by way of a greeting.

“I need your opinion,” Foggy announced, also forgoing the pleasantries.

“I don't have time to chat, shortstop. How the hell’d you even get this number anyway?”

Foggy ignored his question and plowed on. “First: chicken or beef? For the reception?”

Frank closed his eyes and dug deep for his last, tattered crumbs of patience. “I literally have another man’s intestines spilled on my boots right now,” he growled in his most frightening bass, the one he used to terrify confessions out of killers and rapists and thieves.

“You're right, chicken is better,” Foggy continued, unfazed, “But what we really need to talk about is the flowers…”

“I’ve got _corpses_ to deal with, little man.”

“The corpses can _wait_.”

Frank sighed, found a relatively intestine-less patch of ground, and plonked himself down. He wasn’t really in the mood to bury any bodies tonight anyway. He’d just light the whole place on fire when he left.

“Alright, what’s the deal with the flowers?”

~~~~~

Frank, dressed in a loose sweatshirt and with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, ended up being the one who had to drag _Matt_ to the cake tasting, despite Frank’s own professed distaste for the task.

“C’mon, Red, there are worse things in this world than being fed free cake.”

“I know…”

“Things like beheadings, and maggots-ridden corpses, and the way bodies get bloated when someone throws them in the harbor –”

“ _Yes, I get it_!” Matt shot a dirty look at Frank from beneath his lenses. “You _are_ trying to convince me to eat the cake, not throw it up, right?”

Frank just grinned, clearly pleased with himself. Matt shook his head ruefully and reached automatically to take Frank’s elbow as they stepped outside of Matt’s apartment. Frank flinched slightly and glared down at where Matt’s fingers were gently curled around the curve of his arm, but Matt just raised an eyebrow at him. “You could hold my hand, if you’d prefer.”

Frank grumbled something indistinct and then actually did, to Matt’s eternal surprise, take Matt’s hand in his own.

“Oh. You. You _do_ prefer to hold my hand.”

“Yup. Figure I won’t be able to do it in public for much longer, what with the body count I’ve been racking up.”

Matt groaned and let his head fall back as he muttered, “Heaven give me strength,” but he didn’t let go of Frank’s hand.

“I’m not sure heaven’s in the business of lending strength to people who wear horns.”

“Everyone hates the horns! But they complete the look…or so I’m told.”

“You’ve been told wrong.”

“What, like _you’re_ the king of subtlety?”

They bickered comfortably all the way to the little bakery Foggy had made them promise to meet him at. It smelled divine, and _clean_ , which instantly put Matt at ease. There was no faster way to a sour stomach than having a hyper-awareness of how recently the person who’d prepared your food had washed their hands – or rather, _not_ washed their hands.

A middle-aged woman with a pleasant voice and an aroma of cinnamon greeted them warmly and then sat them down in front of a long table, before proceeding to bustle off to the back and return with platter after platter of cake samples. The clashing scents of the different flavors quickly reached the point of overwhelming, so Matt tuned out the waves of flour and fondant assaulting his nose and instead focused down to the familiar smell of Frank: warm and musky, with that ever present touch of gunpowder.

“That’s a _lot_ of kinds,” Foggy noted a little breathlessly at the sight. “I didn’t know there were that many kinds.” He sounded a bit daunted, and Matt had been witness to Foggy decimating entire pizzas without breaking a sweat, so that he would be given pause by the amount of cake before them…well. It was a little unnerving, to say the least.

“Did you go through all this the first time you got married?” Foggy hissed to Frank as the first flavor was set before them. Matt froze, and tried to telepathically communicate to Foggy that mentioning Frank’s old life was something to be _avoided at all costs_.

But Frank hardly even twitched. His shoulders stiffened, sure, and he gripped his fork a little tighter, but his voice was steady as he replied, “I didn’t pay much attention my first time round. I’m not making that mistake again.”

Matt managed to go through the motions as they progressed through the cream cheese frosted pumpkin spice and chocolate coconut fudge, offering such sparkling commentary as “that was nice,” and “mmhmm,” but his thoughts kept circling back to what Frank had said. ‘I’m not making that mistake again.’ In light of those words, Frank’s whole unfathomable attitude about the wedding began to make so much _sense_. Because, it was one of Frank’s primary motivators – _regret_. He regretted not doing this right the first time. And although Matt couldn’t imagine Frank begrudging Maria a three tier orange almond buttercream wedding cake if she’d wanted one, he could all too easily see Frank sitting back and letting it happen around him. Not appreciating it, or taking part in it because, well. It was a little silly. It wasn’t important. These were just trappings, sugar and spice and everything he didn’t care about.

But then.

Matt tried to swallow the bite of cake on his fork, but with his mind churning the way it was, it tasted more like cardboard than red velvet. He could tell Frank was picking up on his dampened attitude, and reached out to give his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Here, Red, try this. I think it’s the one.” Frank lifted his fork and slid it between Matt’s waiting lips. Matt closed his mouth, pulling the bite off the fork slowly and letting the flavor burst across his tongue. It was a rich vanilla cake with an orange chocolate frosting, the cake fluffy and simple enough not to be overwhelming, the frosting thick and flavorful with just enough of a citrus splash to keep it interesting. Matt reached up to take Frank’s hand, gently guiding it back down to the table before twining their fingers together.

Frank was right, it was the one.

The moment must have looked as intimate as it felt, because Foggy coughed and busied himself with the remains of a strawberry chocolate chip cake, while their host let out a soft “oh!” and blushed.

Matt could feel and hear his heart going gangbusters and Frank’s starting to tick upwards in return, but he forced a bland smile onto his face as he turned to their host and told her quietly, “I think we’ve made our decision.”

As Matt and Frank waited outside the shop for Foggy to finish settling the details of their order, Matt contemplated dragging Frank down for the really heated kiss he so badly wanted to give him. And if he hadn’t been in full view of hundreds of passersby, he would have done exactly that. As it was, he had to content himself with holding Frank’s hand chastely, and trying not to imagine too vividly what Frank would taste like with all those sugars and flavors mingling in his mouth….

The bell on the door jangled a warning as Foggy came bouncing out of the shop and took up a position on Matt’s side, opposite Frank.

“Since I have you both here,” Foggy began slyly, “How about we just pop into the florists down the block and take a look, hmm? Or a sniff, in your case,” Foggy gave Matt’s shoulder a friendly bump.

Matt pulled a face, ready to beg off of flower-shopping duty, but Frank squeezed his hand and muttered, “Better humor him, Red, or he’ll buy you some shitty flowers that make your nose itch.”

“I would never,” Foggy declared, “And I take deep offense that you would even _suggest_ such a thing.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Frank drawled, before Matt threw his hands up in both their faces, groaning, “Don’t start, you two.”

“ _He_ started it,” Foggy sniffed, sticking his nose in the air.

“You wanna take this outside, half pint?”

“We _are_ outside, halfwit!”

“Enough!” Matt shouted, yanking them both to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “Both of you _shut up_ and behave like _adults_ or this whole wedding thing is _off_.”

Frank and Foggy immediately shut up, though not without trading dirty looks.

“There. That’s better.” Matt took both their arms in his own and led them off towards the shop whose fragrance he could smell from a street away, cutting through the stench of rotting garbage and engine fumes.

Matt had to steady himself against Frank as they drew closer to the store entrance, and the scent of flowers grew from a pleasant diversion to an overwhelming bombardment.

He unlooped his arm from Frank’s as Foggy remarked, “There are improbable quantities of flowers in this store, considering it’s about the size of our first dorm room. Well, I guess, just… follow your nose, Matty.”

Foggy gave him a friendly little shove in the door and Matt did as he was told, following his nose right to a bouquet tucked in the corner.

“These ones,” he stated simply, pointing at the blossoms in front of him. He was fairly certain they were lilies, but his botanical knowledge was pretty limited once it moved past asking the clerk for a dozen of whatever looked nice.

“No, Matt, not those,” Foggy declared, trying to nudge Matt in a different direction.

“Why not? They smell lovely.”

“They’re _white_ lilies, Matt. Those are used for _funerals_. There are some calla lilies over there…”

“But I like _these_!” Matt insisted, a little petulantly, growing more attached to his choice with every second he spent defending it.

“ _Matt_ …”

“ _Foggy_ …”

“Let him have his goddamn death flowers,” Frank piped up from directly behind Foggy. Foggy yelped and leapt aside as Frank his arm around Matt’s shoulders in what constituted a pretty dramatic public show of affection by his standards. Matt grinned smugly over at Foggy, who scowled over his head at Frank. Frank scowled right back, and Foggy quailed under his harsh stare in seconds.

“Fine!” he tossed his hands up in resignation. “Death flowers it is! But only a few, to appease you and your delicate little sniffer. Deal?”

Matt considered the offer for a moment, and then nodded benevolently. “Deal.”

“Good. Now, let’s go. I think this whole event will turn out much better if we don’t let you make any more decisions about it.”

Matt made to roll his eyes, but froze midway when he heard the swish of air that meant Frank was nodding his agreement. He rounded on his fiancé, hands on hips. “ _Hey_! I make fine decisions.”

Frank shook his head solemnly as Foggy replied, “You really don’t, though, buddy.”

Matt continued to glare, half astonished and half outraged at Frank. “ _You_ were ready to _fight_ him,” Matt jerked his head at Foggy, “a minute ago, and now you’re backing him up?”

“Pretty much. I mean, he’s right. You’ve got shit taste.”

“I should definitely call this wedding off,” Matt muttered, crossing his arms with a grumpy pout.

Foggy took a look at Frank, whose gruff expression betrayed deep affection, and at Matt, whose disgruntled attitude was clearly only skin-deep, covering a vulnerability that Foggy only rarely had the privilege to see. He let out a long-suffering sigh and reached out to give Matt’s shoulder a squeeze. “Not on your life, Murdock.” Foggy glanced up at Frank, looking pointedly between him and Matt until he got the message and reached down to take Matt’s hand again. Matt stiffened for a moment, before relaxing, and twining their fingers together.

“There,” Foggy nodded, his task accomplished. “Now. You two go on home and do whatever engaged vigilantes do on weekends, and I’ll make sure you have the best damn wedding two misguided, unstable, emotionally constipated idiots ever had.”

~~~~~

A week or so later, Foggy cornered Matt at the end of the workday, blocking the path out of his office and shuffling him back until there was enough room for Foggy to close the door and shut them inside.

“It’s time to talk about the bachelor party, Matt,” Foggy announced, in the tone of one who knew he was going to be met with resistance, but had come prepared and ready to win.

“Foggy…” Matt threw his head back as he griped, “Do we really have to do this? You know I don’t really like parties.”

“You don’t really like _other people’s_ parties, parties that have been planned by people other than _me_ , you best friend on this earth.”

“You planned Marci’s birthday party in college,” Matt countered with a stubborn jut of his chin, “And I clearly recall being so hungover the next morning that I rued the day I ever met you.”

“Yeah,” Foggy sounded pleased as he thought back to their early days, “That was an epic party.”

“I think you just proved my point.”

“C’mon, Matty!” Foggy implored, “This is a sacred rite of passage, you can’t ignore it!”

“Oh, but I _can_ ,” Matt contended, trying to step around Foggy to the door.

“Oh, but I won’t _let_ you,” Foggy shot back, diving between Matt and his escape. “I won’t let you mostly because I think you’re trying to avoid it out of some weird sense of Catholic guilt, not because you _actually_ don’t want to spend one of your last nights of singlehood getting smashed out of your mind on cheap liquor with your best friends.”

When Matt just frowned stonily and didn’t respond, Foggy took Matt’s shoulders and started to shake him until he broke into a tentative smile and finally replied, “Does the liquor _have_ to be cheap?”

“Yes!” Foggy pulled Matt in for a one-armed hug, as he continued spiritedly, “It absolutely does! If it doesn’t burn and choke you on the way down, then it’s not for us. Also, in the quantities I’m imagining for this night, anything less than bargain-basement moonshine will put us out of house and home.”

Matt sighed magnanimously before prompting Foggy, “So. Who do you want to come to this extravaganza?”

“I made a list!” Foggy produced a sheet of braille from inside his jacket and shoved it eagerly into Matt’s waiting hands.

He ran his fingers over the first name on the list, and raised an eyebrow. “You want to invite Claire? Isn't a bachelor party typically with, you know, _bachelors_?”

Foggy crossed his arms defiantly. “You're marrying a guy who parades around with a skull spray painted on his chest and you want to squabble about _gender_?”

“Fair enough,” Matt agreed. “Then Karen’s coming too?”

“She has graciously agreed to take Frank off your hands, so you can spend an evening free from your soon-to-be spouse.”

Matt nodded, smiling slightly as he imagined Karen and Frank tearing up the town together, and ran his fingers over the next name on the list. “You want to invite _Brett_?” he asked doubtfully.

“Well, yeah,” Foggy shrugged. “We're kind of short on friends, my pal.” He took Matt’s hand and ran it over the very blank rest of the paper. “In fact, you could kind of say we have almost no friends.”

“I know, and it’s not him _personally_ , I actually like him a lot. He’s a really good guy. But how smart an idea is it to invite a member of law enforcement to a party celebrating my upcoming marriage to a criminal?”

“I don't know, Matt,” Foggy volleyed back, “How smart is it to get engaged to said criminal in the first place?”

Matt conceded defeat with a raise of his hands. “I get your point.”

“Good,” Foggy nodded firmly. “And besides, Brett was there for the first round of this whole mess, it’s no secret to him. And there aren’t a lot of people in that category, so we might as well hold onto ‘em.

“Oh! And speaking of guest lists,” Foggy juggled papers with a rustle, “We should confirm the people you’re inviting to the wedding proper.”

“Ok.” Matt waited expectantly.

Foggy didn’t reply for a minute, and Matt got the feeling he was being stared at. “It’s the same people, Matt,” Foggy finally said, sounding unimpressed. “It’s you and Frank, me and Karen, and Claire and Brett. Between you and your crazy vigilante boyfriend, those are the only people who got the OK. _Why_ is someone as handsome as you so _lonely_?”

“It could be I’m simply too radiant for most people to stand.”

“Ha, right. Or, it could be that you’re a little paranoid.”

“I _am_ paranoid. But only because ninjas routinely try to kill me.”

Foggy rolled his eyes, but his tone was sympathetic as he said, “I get it Matt, or at least, I get it as much as it is possible for someone who’s never been skewered by a ninja to get it. It’s just… aren’t you kind of walking a thin line here? You want to get married, but you have to keep it under wraps. You want Frank in your life, but you also keep him an arm’s length away from all the people you interact with when the sun is out.”

“I’ve spent my whole life walking the line, Foggy,” Matt explained gently, “Hell, my _identity_ is one long tightrope balancing act. And adding more people to it just makes the walk shakier.”

“Or, it adds increases the number of people who can catch you when you fall,” Foggy countered.

“I’m already tired of this metaphor.”

“Agreed. Just…if and when I accidentally let slip to my parents that you got married and they weren’t invited to the wedding, _you_ have to promise to be the one to deal with the fallout.”

“I promise,” Matt chuckled, giving Foggy’s shoulder an affable pat as he finally allowed Matt to pass to the door.

“I’m not kidding! The first thing my mom asks me when she calls is how _you_ are,” Foggy complained as he followed Matt out into the main office. “Though, on the upside, when she finds out she got snubbed, at least she’ll stop trying to set you up with my cousin Bernice.”

“What’s wrong with Bernice?” Karen asked as they came out, glancing up from where she was packing up for the night.

“Nothing, really,” Matt shrugged, “Except that she thinks lawyers are the scum of the earth and that New York is a desolate wasteland of capitalism and greed.”

“So basically, the perfect woman for Matt,” Foggy added.

“Wow. I’m kind of glad I’ve never been subjected to your mother’s matchmaking,” Karen admitted with a laugh.

“You’re right to be glad, she’s a force to be reckoned with.” Foggy leaned his chin on his hand as he squinted in her direction. “I predict that she would have tried to set you up with Cousin Mike. Like you, he is tall, blonde, and beautiful.”

“Sounds like a catch.”

“He also has the IQ of dirt,” Matt contributed helpfully. “I once spent an agonizing ten minutes in conversation with him. I don’t recommend it.”

“Well, before you start figuring out who else of the Nelson brood might be romantically suited to me,” Karen began, tugging her purse over her shoulder with one hand while she held out some papers to Matt with the other, “Here’s a copy of our working budget for the wedding.”

“Ah.” Matt took the papers with a grateful nod, and promptly put them in his briefcase to be ignored.

“And,” Karen continued pointedly, “Here is a magazine article that I think you should take a look at.” She wrapped his hands firmly around the stapled packet of braille to emphasize its importance.

“Matt, I know you’re an adult, and can make your own decisions,” she told him evenly, “But, I also know _you_ , which means I’m aware that you don’t usually _think through_ your decisions. Now, don’t argue with me,” she raised her voice slightly over the beginnings of Matt’s protest, “Just _read it_ , and talk it over with the guy you’re planning on spending the rest of your life with.”

She waited for Matt to agree, which he did with an ornery sort of nod, before giving him a farewell peck on the cheek and leaving.

Foggy let Matt take his elbow without a single comment about his decision-making ability, though Matt could tell from the amusement radiating off him that he thought Karen had a point.

He studiously ignored the article all the way home and through dinner (no Frank, which wasn’t unusual, since there _was_ no usual with him). But, as the evening wound down and he prepared to don the suit and steal into the night, his guilt finally got the better of him and he flopped down on the couch with a resigned sigh to skim through whatever it was Karen thought he needed to see so badly.

He started by brushing his fingers along the title of the article, and almost put it down immediately. It read “Eleven Questions to Consider before Putting a Ring on it.” He grumbled something unkind about not needing advice from some pseudo-psychologist wannabe journalist hack, but forced himself to continue looking through the article.

“Have you talked to your partner about who’s going to be taking out the garbage not just today, but for the next ten years? Have you agreed on whether your next paycheck is going into your retirement fund, or to a vacation in Hawaii?”

Matt paused. If he was being honest, he’d thought about approximately none of those questions, much less discussed them with Frank. He supposed they’d been a little more focused on questions of life and death, the difference between justice and revenge, how to match their disparate styles of vigilante justice…but sharing a life together meant dealing with the mundane tasks of living, like cleaning the toilet and paying electricity bills. He had a moment of very serious speculation: what if the Frank he thought he knew was actually just Frank being on his best behavior? Would he act differently once they were married? Had _he_ thought about cleaning toilets and paying bills?

Matt’s fingers slipped quickly down to the next paragraph, no longer scornful of the article but eager for it to impart its wisdom.

“When in the throes of romance and young love, many couples neglect these unexciting questions, assuming that any issues that arise will just work themselves out.” Matt flinched, feeling personally targeted by that statement. “But for any marriage to succeed, there must be honesty and communication, and sometimes that means being upfront about the boring stuff and the hard stuff…

  1. _Affection and lovemaking: What are your needs in this area? How do they compare with your partner's needs?_



Matt relaxed minutely at reading the first question, because _that_ was definitely not a problem. In fact, he had to loosen his collar a bit when he thought back to the night before… He gave his head a firm shake and refocused his attention to the braille beneath his fingers.

  1. _Time and relations with relatives and in-laws: When and how often do you get together with in-laws?_



Well, that one was easy; everyone in their respective families was dead.

  1. _Parenting styles: Do you agree on whether or not to have children, and how many? If you do have kids, can you imagine who will be the disciplinarian and who the pushover?_



Matt opted to ignore that particularly fraught question for the moment, as it wasn’t something he wanted to think about. (Which was probably the entire point of Karen giving him the article in the first place, but he didn’t want to think about that either.)

  1. _Money and finance: who’s in charge of the money?_



Matt also breezed past that one. He hadn’t cared much about money before, and he wasn’t going to start now. (Also probably not the conclusion Karen had been hoping he’d come to.)

Matt’s cell rang before he could move on to the next point, but he set the article carefully on top of the “to be dealt with” pile on his desk, with a notion of trying sneak some of those questions into future conversations with Frank.

  1. _Play and recreation: Given the stresses of modern life, have you budgeted adequate time off to be together?_



Matt let his hearing linger on Frank’s heart beating next to him on the pitch black roof, steady despite the sharp breeze pricking at their faces and the prospect of taking down a warehouse of gunrunners before them. Yes, he decided, they certainly knew how to find time to just be themselves, together.

“What’re you grinning at, Red?” Frank grumbled, catching sight of Matt’s expression as he thought about how the author of that article might react to knowing their definition of ‘recreation.’

“Nothing. Just thinking about all the things I’m gonna do to you once we finish here.”

“Keep your head in the game, Romeo,” Frank drawled, but Matt was rewarded with an answering uptick in his heartrate, nonetheless.

  1. _Relations with others: What is your joint toleration for friends, of the same and opposite sex, outside the marriage?_



The next night, as they stalked the remnants of the band of gunrunners they’d taken down yesterday, Matt asked Frank apropos of nothing in particular, “What’s your tolerance for friendships outside our marriage?”

“The hell’re you on about?” Frank grumbled, without looking up from the binoculars he had trained on the warehouse across the street.

“I just mean, does it bother you that I spend so much time with Foggy and Karen?”

“No,” Frank answered shortly.

“I just wanted to be sure that you weren’t, I don’t know… jealous?” Matt suggested, aiming for offhand but missing by a mile.

“Are you fucking them behind my back?” Frank asked candidly.

“ _No_!”

“Then I’m not jealous.” Frank leapt to his feet a moment later, tossing the binoculars down and raising his rifle. “Movement at my ten o’clock.”

“Got it.”

They raced across the rooftops in perfect harmony, and no more was said on the topic.

  1. _Religion and church responsibilities: If you're from differing traditions, how are you going to decide on a faith community?_



Matt mulled over that question for several days, running over in his head what little he knew of Frank’s beliefs before he dredged up the courage to broach the subject.

They were having a quiet breakfast when Matt tried to casually insert the question into their currently non-existent conversation. With practiced nonchalance he asked, “Would you ever go to church with me, Frank?”

Frank kept chewing his toast for a minute, eyes still fixed on his plate when he finally answered, “Do you want me to?”

Matt shrugged, pretending to be focused on his food. “Maybe. For something special, like Christmas.”

Frank didn’t reply for a long time, to the point that Matt thought he was just ignoring the question (it wouldn’t be the first time he’d employed that tactic). But then, a little while later as Matt was gathering their dishes and putting them in the sink, Frank piped up, “Not sure it’d be right. Person like me being in a place like that.”

“A place like what?”

“A church. A holy place, you know.”

Matt dried his hands carefully and turned back to Frank, making it clear where his attention was. “I think my priest would disagree, and say a place like that is _exactly_ where a person like you should be.”

Frank scrubbed a hand over his face, leaving his fingers pressed over his eyes as he grumbled, “What’s this about, Red?”

“Nothing.” Matt felt the slightest blush prickle at his cheeks, “I just thought it was something we should discuss.”

Frank dragged his hand away from his eyes, looking squarely at Matt as he said, “Red, you know that I’ll never have faith, not like you, not ever again. If there is a God, and I ever met him…”

“You’d punish him?”

Frank’s silence was answer enough.

And that was alright, Matt decided as he stepped forward, taking Frank’s face in both of his hands and pressing a light kiss to his forehead. Matt could live with that.

  1. _Division of household responsibilities: who does the chores?_



The next point on the list ended up popping into Matt’s head at a rather peculiar time.

It technically began with Frank figuring out pretty quickly that Matt _really_ liked to go at it in the shower.

Sometimes the water enhanced his senses, pinging off of every surface and creating a vivid image in Matt's mind, and other times it was utterly confusing, smashing his sensory input to pieces as smells were washed away and touch became an unpredictable barrage. Either way, it made being touched feel unbelievably intense. Visceral. Immediate and clear. Fucking _good_. The slick slide of skin, noises bouncing wildly off the walls, and a sort of cleanliness in everything no matter how utterly filthy it got. 

Frank had given up all pretense of subtlety and started stashing supplies in the shower caddy next to the soap. Matt had yet to complain. 

At the current moment, Matt's face was pressed against the cool tile as he reveled in the temperature differential between the chill on his cheek and Frank's scorching heat pressed up along his back.

“ _Harder_ ,” Matt panted, nails scratching on the tile, struggling to find purchase. 

“For you, Red? Always.”

With one Frank’s wilder thrusts, the shampoo bottle was knocked off of its precarious perch and hit the ceramic bottom of the tub with a light thump, apparently empty.

That’ll need to go on the list of things to get at the store, Matt noted vaguely somewhere between _fuck yes_ and _right there._ Then, because once his brain got hold of something it didn’t like to let go, he found himself wondering if Frank’s general amicability towards doing chores like grocery shopping and other menial errands was just part of who he was, or some special honeymoon period in their relationship. As his thoughts were dragged inexorably towards the distinctly less-sexy contemplations of household chores, he began to respond less enthusiastically to Frank’s really quite quality fucking.

Frank noticed his distraction, and quickly remedied the situation by biting down hard on the back of Matt’s neck, snapping him completely back into the situation at hand.

When it was over, however, and they were panting against each other, Matt mostly holding Frank up and the wall mostly holding Matt up, thoughts of housework came floating back to the forefront of his mind.

“So,” Matt began, fluttering his fingers against Frank’s forearm to get his attention, “I have a random question. Just out of curiosity. Am I, uh, am I going to have to be a nagging spouse to get you to take out the garbage and do dishes or…”

Matt felt Frank’s eyelashes drag across his skin as he blinked in confusion before answering, “Your brain goes to the damndest places when you get off.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed, wishing it wasn’t very true. “So? Are you going to be… responsible with your household duties?”

“Well, I’ll make sure there’s always plenty of lube in the shower, if that’s what you mean,” Frank punctuated his reply with a sharp slap of Matt’s ass.

Matt sighed, and wriggled happily against the tile, question effectively answered. “I'm really glad I'm marrying you.”

Frank leaned in to nibble his earlobe, murmuring back, “The feeling’s mutual.”

  1. _Careers and location of residence: are you willing to move, and how far?_



“You don’t ever want to leave New York, right?”

“Huh?” Frank tilted his head in Matt’s direction, but didn’t actually look up from where he was cleaning a pair of shotguns.

“I mean, you don’t have a secret burning desire to go and see the world, or move to Portland, or something,” Matt clarified as he leaned his hip casually on the counter next to Frank.

“Why would I want to move to Portland?” Frank sounded lost, like he wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up in this conversation.

“I don’t know! Maybe the Mafia has a secret stronghold there and you want to pack up and go take them down…”

“Why would the Mafia set up shop in Portland?” Frank sounded even more confused than before.

“They probably wouldn’t. This is all hypothetical. I just think that before we get married, we should be thinking about things like our careers –”

“We fight crime in the dead of night, I wouldn’t call that a _career_ –”

“– and our respective locations of residence.”

“‘Locations of residence,’” Frank parroted derisively, sounding suddenly like he understood what was going on. “Christ, Red, it was a goddamn magazine article, not the Bible. You don’t have to go through it word for word.”

“ _What_? How did you –”

“Well, after you started asking questions about ‘tolerance for outside relationships’ and ‘household responsibilities’ I started getting suspicious. Thought you might be talking to a shrink, or listening to those shitty daytime talk shows again–”

“Hey, that was _once_ , and I was recuperating from a _stab wound_ –”

“ _Anyway_. The article’s sitting out on your desk. And every day, it makes its way back to the top of the pile of stuff you actually pay attention to, so clearly you were going back to it a lot…and I decided to take a look.”

“That’s– you noticed that I– but…it’s in _braille_.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you…know braille?”

“Not well. I just started to learn it. I figured out the article’s title and then looked it up online,” Frank admitted, sounding frustrated.

“Did you start to learn braille…for me?”

“No, I’m learning braille for my _other_ blind fiancé.”

Matt gaped. Frank crossed his arms.

“Don’t make this a thing,” he warned.

“Ok.” Matt took a step into Frank’s personal space, expression solemn.

“Seriously, don’t.”

“Ok.” Matt let his hands drift to Frank’s hips and then slide along his waistband to tug meaningfully at the button of his jeans. “Could I maybe blow you, though?”

“Oh….” Frank’s eyes grew wide, before he nodded jerkily, “Yeah.”

What began with a blowjob ended with a whole lot more, so that an hour later found them both in bed, naked and sticky with sweat. Matt was licking a lazy trail up Frank’s chest, paying special attention to the scarred patches he came across. He liked running his mouth over the rough, uneven texture, the imperfect skin tickling his lips and making Frank shiver.

Frank went still under Matt’s ministrations, however, and his breathing caught in that way that meant he was about to try and say something significant.

“You haven’t asked the really important question, though, Red,” he murmured, lifting a hand to trace along Matt’s jawline.

“Hmm?”

“From that damn article. The question about parenting…about kids.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Frank’s thumb rubbed small circles against Matt’s skin, and Matt reached up to cover Frank’s hand with his own.

“I just assumed…that it would probably be a no. I mean, with what we do? What kind of life could we offer a child? It wouldn’t be fair.”

“We would have to stop,” Frank said simply. “That would be the only way. We couldn’t knowingly bring that kind of violence and fear into the life of a kid.” Frank turned to look at Matt, and even though he couldn’t actually see it, he still felt pinned under that gaze. “Do _you_ think that you could ever stop?”

“No. Well, maybe. Just…not now. Not the way the world is now….What about you?” He leaned into Frank’s palm, and couldn’t decide how he wanted Frank to answer that question.

“I would have said no, never. But I also wouldn’t have ever thought I’d be getting married again, so… things change. People change.”

“Oh!” Matt perked up, “That’s actually the last question. Something like, uh, ‘How will you adapt your marriage to your growing, changing selves?’”

“Well. I imagine that if I get out of line, you’ll kick my ass, and vice versa. That adaptable enough for you?”

Matt laughed and nodded. “Yes.”

“Look at us,” Frank stretched, tucking his arms behind his head, “Talking through these things like rational adults. We’re a goddamn model couple.”

“We should write to the author of that article,” Matt curled up against Frank’s side, settling his head on Frank’s chest, “Tell her she provided us with a rock-solid foundation for our marriage.”

“ ‘Your article helped us figure our shit out, thanks. Sincerely, the Punisher and the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.’ ”

“Maybe we should hyphenate. Mr. and Mr. Punisher-Devil.”

“That’s kind of a mouthful.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t fit very well on my business cards.”

“Probably would scare away clients, too.”

Matt’s cell rang out from the bedside table before he could respond. The phone recited the number of his office, and as he reached for it he growled, “That might not be such a bad thing. Clients are overrated.”

Frank hummed his agreement, letting his hand skim over Matt’s side as he clambered over to grab his phone.

“Hello,” Matt answered, just barely keeping the resentment out of his voice.

“Hello, Matty!” Foggy chirped from the other end of the line, “This is your one-hour warning! The bachelor party begins at 7pm sharp, and I expect you to be dressed and ready when I get there.”

Matt rubbed at his temples, already fearing the hangover he was sure to acquire tonight. “Why did you call me from the office number, Foggy?”

“Because I thought you might blow me off if I called you from my number.” Matt made a dissenting noise but didn’t actually disagree, because that was something that may indeed have happened. He was known for ignoring non-work-related calls when he was, ah, _otherwise occupied_.

“So! To reiterate! In T-minus 60 minutes, we will descend on your apartment to pick you up for the wildest bachelor party Hell’s Kitchen has ever seen!”

“Foggy. There are four of us, and we’re probably just going to go to Josie’s and get plastered.”

“Did…did you want something other than that?” Foggy sounded nervous and Matt quickly assured him, “No! Josie’s is perfect.”

“Good,” Foggy sounded greatly relieved. “Because once you take strippers off the table, the Internet has very little to offer about how to plan a bachelor party. Unless you wanted to have a weekend of manly bonding in the woods, as one site suggested.”

“I think I’ll take a pass.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Alright then, buddy. One hour, I’ll be ready. Goodbye.”

“Nelson calling about the party?” Frank guessed, looping an arm around Matt’s waist as he set the phone aside and resumed his comfortable position reclining against Frank’s chest.

“Mmm. Worried that I won’t be ready to go.”

“He has good cause. Look at you. You’re a mess.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Hey, I’d love to keep you here and get you even messier, but I’ve got plans of my own, apparently.”

“Ah, yes, your very own special two-person bachelor party, courtesy of Karen. Think you’re gonna hit up some strip joints, maybe cruise for chicks?”

“Definitely,” Frank agreed laconically, before continuing, “I like Karen. She’s not gonna try and pull any of that traditional-bachelor-party shit with me. That Nelson, though, you’d better watch out.”

“Hey, Foggy knows how to respect my boundaries. Which are definitely drawn with a firm berth around any and all strip clubs.”

“Good. At least I don't have to worry about you ogling any strippers on your night out.” 

“Yeah, I think you can be pretty sure I won't be ogling _anyone_ anytime soon,” Matt agreed dryly. “What about you? Do I have reason to be jealous?”

“Please. There's only one person I want to see strip...” Frank smirked and tugged Matt into a kiss, tilting their bodies until his was covering Matt’s from head to toe. Matt tugged playfully on Frank’s lip for a minute, relishing the heat of his body and the firm pressure of his muscled chest. But then, with a skilled twist of his legs and torso, he flipped them, pressing Frank down into the mattress with one last hard kiss before dancing neatly off the bed and onto the floor. He headed towards the bathroom with a grin, savoring Frank’s breathless swearing as laid dazedly on his back, hands still reaching for the space Matt had occupied seconds earlier.

An hour later found them both showered and dressed, milling around the apartment as they prepared to go out (which for Frank, mostly consisted of stomping around and glaring at various pieces of furniture as if they might misbehave while he was gone, and for Matt, mostly meant smiling softly as he listened to Frank clomp around distractedly.)

Matt did up the last buttons on his shirt, smoothing a hand down the front and tucking in the tails. Frank spotted him and made an appreciative noise, and Matt slowed in his movements as he rolled the cuffs up his forearms.

“You like me in shirtsleeves?” he inquired with a wicked curl to his lips.

“I like you in anything. Or nothing,” Frank amended. “You look good enough to eat, which you already knew, because you have a huge ego.” Matt let out an astonished laugh, but didn’t protest when Frank came close enough to slip his arms around Matt’s waist. Matt didn’t need sight to know Frank was leering as his fingers slipped into Matt’s waistband, teasing along his front before his hands settled into a firm grip on his hips.

Matt leaned in to lick that expression off of Frank’s lips, but flinched away as a furious knocking interrupted the moment.

“MATTY!” Foggy shouted through the door with glee, “IT’S PARTY TIME.”

“Why is it,” Frank growled ominously, “that every time I get my hands on you _he_ shows up at the door.”

“Just bad timing, I guess.” Matt gave Frank’s cheek a consoling pat before heading to let Foggy in.

“Heyyy!” Foggy leapt through the door and wrapped Matt up in a hug before bouncing away and up the hall. Upon rounding the corner and spotting Frank, arms crossed and looking venomous, Foggy skidded to a halt. He mirrored Frank’s combative stance, crossing his arms and planting his legs.

“It’s time for you, my friend, to leave,” Foggy announced firmly. “Vamoose,” he added when Frank didn’t seem to be planning on moving, “Skedaddle. Evacuate the premises.”

Frank didn’t respond, except for to growl a little and squint harder.

Foggy returned the squint, and added, “Don’t make me call Karen. She will come over here and remove you by force, if necessary.”

Frank seemed to weigh that possibility for a minute, before nodding and stomping wordlessly past Foggy, who held his head high and kept a watchful eye on Frank as he made to leave.

“Don’t let him get you too plastered,” Frank advised Matt with a baleful sort of glance back at Foggy.

“I won’t,” Matt assured him, tipping forward to kiss him lightly, before taking him by the shoulders and marching him to the door. “Now, off you go!” Matt gave Frank a friendly shove over the threshold, just as Claire and Brett appeared at the top of the stairs. They passed Frank and exchanged polite nods, before Matt welcomed them into his apartment.

“Brett!” Foggy cheered upon catching sight of the perpetually-grumpy looking detective.

“Hey, Foggy,” Brett replied uncomfortably, sounding like he already regretted being there.

“And Claire!” Foggy greeted her with an enthusiastic hug, which she returned. “Glad you’re here. Now we have a registered nurse onsite, to deal with any alcohol-related injuries we may collect during our journey.” 

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Claire confided, hooking her arm through Foggy’s, “because I’m here to get _wrecked_ on your dime.”

Foggy gave Claire a high-five as Matt’s admittedly weak sense of frugality reared its head and pushed him to ask, “So, how much did you budget for this, Foggy?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, Matty.”

“Okay, but…I still have a retirement fund, right?” Matt wondered briefly how good an idea it had been to let Foggy have access to his finances.

Foggy snorted, “Buddy, you were badly misinformed if you thought you _ever_ had a retirement fund. But in any case, your hubby-to-be is footing the bill for most of this, since he has no real plans for retirement, anyway.”

Matt winced. “Please never call him that again. Or insinuate that he’s going to die.”

“Hey, that’s not what I meant. I was insinuating that he’s going to be out there blowing away criminals when he’s ninety, arthritis and Alzheimer’s be damned –”

“And, I’ve already heard too much,” Brett muttered, putting his hands over his ears. “We need alcohol. Right now.”

Like some kind of genie of spirits, Foggy produced from the depths of his satchel a bottle of vodka and a set of what he informed Matt were travel shot glasses, complete with little tops and a leather carrying case.

“Thank Christ for you, Nelson,” Brett declared as he none-too-gently ripped the bottle and glasses from Foggy’s hands.

“What can I say?” Foggy shrugged magnanimously, “I like to be prepared.”

Matt leaned in close to whisper in Foggy’s ear, “Is it a good idea to start out so quickly with the hard stuff? We haven’t even left my apartment yet.”

“Beer before liquor, never been sicker, Matty,” Foggy proclaimed cheerfully, before tilting his towards Matt to add in an undertone, “Besides, I think we should probably get them at least a little drunk before we bring them to Josie’s. It’ll soften the blow.”

Matt laughed, “Hasn’t Karen taken Claire there already?”

“Once. I’m told Claire marched right back out.”

“Oh boy.”

“Yeah. And I’m pretty sure Brett’s never been faced with the cornucopia of health code violations that is our favorite shithole.”

Matt chuckled and slung an arm around Foggy’s shoulders. “This is gonna be an interesting night.”

“Why am I even here?” Brett asked, sounding totally at a loss as they stepped through Josie’s doors and were hit with a blast of stale beer and body odor.

“Because you’re our friend,” Foggy answered with a cheery pat on his arm.

Brett raised his eyebrows at Foggy. “Am I? I must have missed the memo on that.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll send you a carbon copy,” Foggy grinned back, and Matt could hear how Brett was keeping a laugh bottled up in his chest at that. Matt hadn’t had occasion to pay close attention to Brett’s heartbeat much outside of situations involving Daredevil, but now… Well, Foggy and Brett’s heartbeats were having a rather interesting conversation that Matt knew he probably shouldn’t be listening in on. And he was pretty sure he knew _exactly_ why Brett was there. This night certainly _was_ going to be interesting, for more reasons than he’d predicted.

An hour and a really inadvisable number of drinks later, Claire was enjoying the view of Matt trying to line up a shot at the pool table, bent over the edge with his ass in the air and his tongue between his teeth as he tried to fight through the haze of alcohol and sink the ball.

Brett too, seeming to be perusing the scene, and Foggy frowned a little. After all, this was not the half of Nelson and Murdock that Foggy would prefer him to be gazing at. However, the matter was complicated by the fact that Brett did not seem to be _enjoying_ the view. He was, in fact, wearing a distinctly glum expression, for which there was no rational way to account considering the undeniable fineness of the ass he currently seemed to be contemplating,

“Checking out the groom-to-be?” Foggy asked casually, dropping out of the blue and into the chair next to Brett, smiling with delight when he jumped in surprise.

“What? _No_!” Brett denied hotly.

“Hey, I’m not blaming you. He’s about to be taken off the market, if you wanna get some quality ogling in under the wire, tonight’s the night.”

“That’s not… I’m not ogling, I’m _comparing_ him.”

“To…?” Foggy waggled his beer bottle expectantly.

Brett seemed to size him up before shifting in his chair, setting his drink down so he could gesture with both hands, looking for all the world like a highly tipsy conspiracy theorist who was about to tell you exactly how it was that the natives of Atlantis faked the moon landing. “So here’s the thing. Frank Castle is the Punisher.” Foggy made a noise of objection, but Brett held up a hand and barreled on, “You know it, I know it, let’s not mess around. _And_ Matt Murdock was and now will be married to Frank Castle.”

“Ummm…”

“ _And_!” Brett continued, picking up his beer and waving it a little too enthusiastically, liquor sloshing over the side, “I’m also pretty sure that _Daredevil_ has saved the _Punisher’s_ ass and vice versa more than once, lately.”

“I don’t know where you’re going with this buddy, but I think you might’ve had too much of Josie’s rotgut…” Foggy grinned and hoped he didn’t look like he was sweating bullets, even though he definitely was.

“Listen to me!” Brett persisted, “You see what I’m getting at? It all adds up to me thinking that _maybe_ , Matt Murdock and Daredevil share more than a zip code.”

Foggy made a production out of scoffing and shaking his head at that. “Please, this is…the most ridiculous…I mean, that’s just, that’s just _laughable_!” Foggy laughed, high and reedy, to emphasize his point.

“I don’t think so –”

“I mean what’s your evidence?” Foggy plowed over Brett’s response. “Some circumstantial connections and, what, _butt_ comparisons? I’m happy to inform you that there are more than two guys in Hell’s Kitchen with nice butts.” (Although this was technically true, Foggy still felt it might be a little heretical to claim that there were butts in Hell’s Kitchen that could compare to Matt Murdock/Daredevil’s. But these were desperate times.)

Brett opened his mouth to continue defending his argument, and Foggy had a sudden burst of inspiration.

“Hey!” He leapt wildly out of his chair. “Listen to that!” Foggy pointed enthusiastically at the speakers that were weakly mumbling something that was probably music, though not definitely. “I love this song! C’mon,” Foggy grabbed Brett and bodily dragged him to his feet, “Dance with me!”

“What?” Brett sputtered, clutching at Foggy for balance, “No one else is dancing!”

“Then we’ll be the first. Trend-setters, Brett! That’s what we are!”

“You can’t even hear the music! What song is this?” Brett was standing defiantly still and looking adorably cranky, and he was (as Foggy had intended) completely sidetracked from his unfortunately accurate train of logic from Frank to Matt to Daredevil.

“No idea!” Foggy cheered, “But it’s my favorite!”

Foggy grabbed Brett’s hands and started to swing him around in a circle, bumping into half a dozen nearby bar-goers and easily brushing aside the last of any of Brett’s uncomfortably valid suspicions.

Meanwhile, a few tables over, Matt was concentrating fiercely on the pool cue in his hand and the small white ball a few feet in front of his nose. His chin was almost brushing the felt of the table as he lined up the shot and…missed spectacularly, the ball bouncing uselessly off the side. Damn.

When they’d just stepped through the door, already more or less on their way to being tipsy off of their cursory vodka shots, the first thing Foggy had done was knock on the bar and yell with great enthusiasm for some “eel!” Matt wasn’t sure what in the world an eel had to do with anything, but he’d drank the proffered liquor readily and ever since, the whole bar had been swimming around him a bit. What hadn’t helped was when he’d agreed to a game of pool with Claire, complete with an alcoholic component: for every ball one of them sunk, the other had to take a shot. Matt had tried to be gentlemanly, letting Claire have the first turn, and now he was making serious headway into “drunk beyond belief” territory.

As he unfolded himself slowly from his near-embrace of the table, Matt expected to be treated to some rousing insults of his pool abilities. However, Claire’s friendly mockery was absent as she sidled closer and closer until she was right at his side.

Matt tilted towards her, eyebrows raised in a question.

She seemed to steel herself before she finally asked, “Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yes!” Matt answered promptly. That would be _great_ , he thought, if he got to keep someone _else’s_ secret for a change.

“It’s just that, with all this wedding stuff, it’s got me thinking about my own future, and who I want to spend it with.”

Matt nodded along, or at least, he was _pretty sure_ he was nodding, but it could just be that the whole room was rocking a little bit. He couldn’t quite tell.

“And the way that you and Frank have just _gone for it_ , you know, you’re getting _married_ , because life is short and you don’t wanna miss it, right?”

“Right,” Matt agreed fervently.

“So, I was just sort of thinking about how, maybe I should…propose to Karen.”

Matt made to nod some more, and then the meaning of those words sank in and he just…blinked. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Claire shuffled awkwardly, swinging her cue between her hands.

“ _Oh_.”

“There’s that support I was hoping for,” Claire muttered acerbically.

“No! Hey!” Matt reached clumsily out to take her shoulder, “I think that’s great. I mean you two, you two are great. Just great. If you did get married, that would be…that would be great.”

“Great.” Claire sighed deeply, her head falling to her chest. “I know it’s stupid,” she said to the sticky bar floor, “I mean, we’ve only _just_ moved in together… but I don’t know. She feels like the one, or something. What do you think, Matt? Is that how you felt about Frank?”

Matt giggled sort of uncontrollably as he answered, “Uh, yeah, if you recall, our first date was when he chained me to a roof and tried to get me to commit murder. I thought he was the _one_ who would send me to an _early grave_.”

“But little did he know, you could put _yourself_ in an early grave without his help.”

“ _Ha_ ,” Matt stuck his tongue out at Claire. “Right. Anyway…I sort of didn’t _want_ to like him for a while, but…yeah. There’ve been a couple of times where I just…reached out, and felt him there beside me and thought…this is it.”

Claire nodded pensively, and then nailed the 6-ball right into the corner pocket with ease. Matt groaned and reached for another shot, sending up a prayer that this night didn’t end with alcohol poisoning.

Several stunning losses later, Matt staggered over to the table Brett and Foggy had claimed after abandoning the dancefloor (to Foggy’s chagrin and Brett’s relief.)

“Hey, buddy!” Foggy greeted Matt cheerfully. Matt smiled sort of dazedly back, reaching towards Foggy but getting tangled up in the legs of a chair, almost nose-diving before Foggy caught him.

 “Whoa, steady on there…” Foggy gasped a little under Matt’s considerable weight, “You doing ok?”

Matt nodded vigorously, which did not add to his stability. He quickly just gave up on the idea of standing under his own power, and settled himself comfortably in Foggy’s lap. “I am…I am doing _so great_ ,” he told Foggy very seriously.

Foggy patted Matt’s knee good-naturedly. “I can see that. So, I guess Claire won the game?”

“She’s a, she’s a _shark_ , Fog,” Matt bared his teeth and snapped them a few times in what Foggy could only assume was an imitation of said aquatic creature.

“Yeah, I kicked his ass,” Claire flipped a chair around neatly and straddled it. “Good news, it means he’s drunk beyond belief. Bad news, it means _I_ am way too sober.”

Foggy retrieved an opened beer from the mess of empty bottles and handed it to a grateful Claire, just as Matt decided to point out in a mournful tone, as if he’d just realized this fact, “Frank’s not here.”

“Er, no, buddy, he’s got his own party going with Karen,” Foggy replied kindly, but Matt’s face still squished into a heartbreaking expression as he confessed, “But I _wish_ Frank was _here_.”

“What a coincidence, I wish I _wasn’t_ here,” Brett muttered churlishly around his beer.

“That’s not true,” Matt declared, pointing a bold finger at the detective across the table. “You’re having a really good time, I can tell –”

“ _Hey_ , how about we play a game!” Foggy suggested loudly, before Matt could accidentally out his super-powers to Brett. “How about…” Foggy rooted blindly around in his bag of bachelor-party must-haves (which mostly consisted of snacks, alcohol, and more alcohol, truth be told) and came up with a deck of cards, “Poker!”

Matt reached out and picked at the pack of cards with distress. “You know who I last played poker with?” Foggy was pretty sure by the look on Matt’s face that he did know, but he wasn’t given the chance to guess. “Frank!” Matt lamented, much to the distress of his assembled friends.

“Is this what he gets like when he’s wasted?” Claire asked, sounding equal parts curious and concerned.

“He does _occasionally_ become a weepy drunk,” Foggy admitted. “That was not the goal of this night, however.” To Matt, he said in with excess cheer, “Hey, buddy! How about we play something else? Maybe something easy, that our drunk minds can handle, like…War?”

“Fine,” Matt moped, sliding off of Foggy’s lap into a nearby chair and propping his head up on his hand.

“That’s the spirit. Ok…” Foggy began to deal the cards into two equal piles. “So, wanna place a bet, make things interesting?”

Matt perked up slightly at that. “A bet? Can I pick what it is?”

“Sure, buddy,” Foggy agreed, feeling relieved, “Whatever you want.”

Matt’s expression suddenly took on a devious note, and Foggy immediately regretted giving Matt carte blanche with this whole bet thing.

“How about, if I win…then you have to kiss Brett.”

Brett choked spectacularly on his beer, and Claire thumped him hard on the back in what Foggy assumed was standard medical practice.

When Brett got his breath back, his spluttered, “Excuse me? _Why_ would you– no, how come _you_ have the right to bet that?”

Matt shot a lopsided grin across the table and replied, “Because it’s _my_ bachelor party.”

“But I, I have _no_ desire to kiss Foggy,” Brett declared.

“He’s lying!” Matt sang gleefully, wagging a scolding finger at Brett. Claire, who was clearly the only one left with any sense or sobriety, slapped a hand over his mouth before he could say any more.

“OK,” Foggy agreed confidently, “If you win, I’ll kiss Brett. If _I_ win, then you have to kiss…” Foggy cast his eyes around the bar before spotting his prey and smiling wickedly, “If I win, then you have to kiss _Josie_.”

Matt paled and clutched the edge of the table. “But….but Josie will kill me.”

“Hey, you’re the one who started this, pal,” Foggy pointed out.

Matt considered his options, before squaring his shoulders and nodding. “You’re right. Let’s do this.”

There followed a very intense game, with lots of swearing (Foggy) and intense stare-downs (one-sided, also Foggy). But in the end, fate was on Matt’s side, and he won by a considerable margin.

“Did you cheat?” Foggy hissed to Matt, looking over their respective stacks of cards with suspicion.

“It’s a game of chance, Fog, how could I cheat?” Matt smirked, and yeah, he definitely cheated.

“Well,” Foggy shot a glance at Brett, who seemed to be getting some sort of pep talk from Claire, “I guess I should say thank you, then.” He angled his eyes towards Matt to see if that got a reaction out of him, but the smugness of Matt’s smirk just increased. “You can thank me by _calling_ before the next time you stop by my place. You don’t know how many times you’ve totally cockblocked me…”

“Right, yes, ok, noted,” Foggy held his hands up as if they could shield him from the mental images, “I will notify you in the future. Now, I’m trying to have a moment here?”

Matt nodded graciously, and scooted his chair back, giving Foggy some space. Brett took the shot Claire had somehow procured for him with gratitude, knocking it back before staring Foggy dead in the eyes with a determination that was somewhat frightening.

“I’m gonna say this once, Foggy,” Brett intoned seriously, “If I didn’t want to kiss you, then I _wouldn’t_.”

Foggy deflated in an instant, sinking meekly down in his chair. He was always up for a little consensual fun-times, but he wasn’t about to push a friend into doing something he wasn’t comfortable with.

“So… get _over_ here, Nelson,” Brett grumbled a moment later, before reaching out to grab Foggy by the collar and reel him in for a firm kiss. Foggy squeaked with surprise but got with the program moments later, flinging his arms around Brett and pulling him in closer, so that both of them teetered dangerously in their chairs.

Claire wolf-whistled loudly, making Matt’s ears ring, but he didn’t much mind, too busy grinning happily at his embracing friends. As the seconds ticked by, and Brett and Foggy didn’t seem too keen on breaking their liplock, Matt began to tap his fingers impatiently on the tabletop.

“So.” He turned to Claire. “How about this weather we’ve been having.”

“Mmm. Yeah. It’s been pretty cloudy.”

“Mmhmm. Kinda humid too.”

“Yeah.” They sat in silence for another moment, before Matt leaned in close to Claire and whispered, “If I dump a glass of water over them, do you think Brett will arrest me?”

“Yes,” Claire responded with a laugh. “But do it anyway.” Matt stood, thinking better of the water (he didn’t want to poison them, after all, and Josie’s pipes were still science fair horror shows) and instead grabbing a couple of shots, which he wasted no time in emptying over the happy couple.

They broke apart, sputtering and swearing, and Claire almost fell over laughing. Matt _did_ fall over laughing, nearly taking down the bikers at the table next door as he went down.

Claire stood and helped Matt to his feet, apologizing to the bikers he’d rattled and depositing him safely back in his chair. During this process, Brett and Foggy had cleaned themselves up and now, Brett appeared to have been lassoed into perching on Foggy’s lap. Foggy looked thrilled about this situation, while Brett continued to look surly. However, one of his hands was still pretty tightly entwined in Foggy’s hair, and it was a safe bet that when it came to Brett, looks could be deceiving.

Matt, upon reaching towards Foggy and encountering Brett’s thigh – “Watch the merchandise, Murdock!” – seemed quite thrown by this development. He blinked in a bewildered sort of way and turned to ask Claire, “Who’s in Foggy’s lap?”

“Uh, Brett is,” Claire answered gently.

“But _I_ was sitting in Foggy’s lap before,” Matt pointed out, as if this should explain everything.

“Yes, you were. And then you weren’t. Now Brett is,” Claire explained tolerantly.

“But, Foggy…” Matt sounded devastated as he turned towards his friend, “That was _my_ lap.”

“Hey, buddy, you’re the one getting _married_ in a week,” Foggy reminded him, squashing Brett tighter to his chest, “You have officially signed away your lap privileges for a life of lap-monogamy.”

Matt’s distress visibly grew, and Claire took action to prevent another incident of near-tears by standing and setting herself neatly down in Matt’s lap.

“There,” she declared, leaning cozily into Matt’s chest, “Now we’re all good, right?” Matt seemed to ponder that for a minute, before a dizzyingly bright smile broke across his features. “Yeah!” he wrapped his arms around Claire’s waist, “Laps for everyone!”

The quartet continued to drink (Brett) and giggle (Matt) and destroy their opponents at cards (Claire and Foggy) and make bad choices (everyone) for another hour. As even the hardest of the hardcore regulars began to yawn and filter out, Josie came over and thwacked Foggy on the back of the head with a dishtowel, ordering them to, “Get your drunk asses out of here. Oh, and congrats, Murdock.”

“Thanks, Josie!” Matt beamed, eternally grateful that he hadn’t had to kiss her and consequently flee the city.

They managed to make it outside and hail a cab, but then came the matter of who was going where.

As Claire convinced Matt that they should probably at least head in the _direction_ of home (Matt wanted suddenly and fervently to visit a zoo, to which Claire’s attempts to remind him that all zoos were closed at this hour, and it’s not like they’d let him in the cage to pet the animals even if they _were_ open so what’s the point – But _lions_ , Claire! – had no affect) Foggy and Brett started drifting closer together. Then, Foggy sort of fell on Brett a little, and the two quickly ended up pressed against the body of the cab, making out while Claire pointedly ignored them and Matt tried to remember how to make his legs work (and thought about how to get to the closest zoo). They disentangled eventually, and Brett clambered inside the taxi, Foggy looking very eager to follow.

“Noooo, Foggy,” Matt acted quickly, shaking himself from his zoo-haze and getting a hand around his friend’s wrist, dragging him in close, “You’re coming with me and Claire. We’re going to a zoo!” he announced proudly.

“We’re not going to a zoo,” Claire corrected him with exasperation, “But I agree, Foggy, you should probably stick with us.”

“But I wanna go with _Brett_ ,” Foggy whined, gesturing towards the man who was peeking his head out of the car like a particularly ill-tempered meerkat. “Didja see him kissing me? Can you believe it?”

“Oh, I saw it,” Claire sighed, “I’m not sure all the alcohol in the world can erase those images from my mind.”

“It was _great_ , you guys,” Foggy enthused, trying feebly to break free of Matt’s hold, “ _He’s_ great!”

“I’m sure he is, Foggy,” Claire agreed soothingly, “And we’re happy for you. But…”

“But friends don’t let friends bang childhood frenemies while drunk,” Matt explained in a less quiet tone of voice than he probably intended. “Also, it’s still my bachelor party, and you’re my best man and my best friend…so you have to stay.” Matt pulled out the puppy dog eyes, and Foggy crumpled like a house of cards in a hurricane.

“Oh…okay, Matty. Sure, of course. Bros before…other bros, that you’ve recently made out with.” Foggy turned with a wobble towards the cab, and waved at Brett.

“I’m gonna stay with my best friend!” he shouted across the three foot distance, pointing at Matt.

“Whatever,” Brett grumbled, not quite hiding the disappointment in his tone.

“I’ll text you! I’ll, I’ll _call_ you!” Foggy insisted, leaning in the direction of the car as the collective force of Matt and Karen held him back.

Brett made a gesture that was half waving goodbye and half flipping them off before slamming the door. The taxi squealed away, and Foggy sank into Matt’s side.

“I hurt his feelings,” he moaned tragically. Matt gave him a gentle squeeze, and Claire made comforting noises.

“It’ll be okay, buddy,” Matt reassured him as they swayed softly together in the wind, “You can make it up to him when you’re both sober.”

They finally managed to secure another taxi, and went off in the vague direction of Matt’s apartment. It was a rather melancholy ride for a few blocks, until Matt realized with a start that there was something that would be absolutely a thousand times better than the zoo, and that something was mini marshmallows.

“They’re, they’re the best, right?” Matt enthused to a relieved Claire (she wasn’t sure she was physically capable of stopping Matt if he wanted to climb into the lion’s enclosure) and an equally excited Foggy (he was a learned man, who understood the value of small sugary bits of gelatin), “Because, because they’re tiny. They’re _mini_! They’re marshmallows, but mini, which is so _clearly_ better than dumb _regular sized_ marshmallows.”

“Clearly,” Foggy agreed gravely.

“Excuse me?” Claire tapped the cab driver on the shoulder, “Could you drop us at the store on the corner here and wait for a few minutes?”

The trio stumbled out of the cab and into the small shop, up and down the three short aisles until they finally managed to procure their prize, and then up to the cash register, where Matt lightly traumatized the young clerk when he pulled his highest-watt smile on her without warning. She bagged their groceries in a daze and handed them off, barely remembering to give them their change. Then, they managed to pour themselves back in the cab, squabbling over who got to open the bag as the driver pulled away from the curb.

When they finally arrived at Matt’s apartment, the mini marshmallows already half-gone; they stood staring up at the stone façade, wondering what to do next. They contemplated their next move in silence, before Matt decided with a shout, “to the roof!” He took off for the stairs with more speed than was advisable for a man with that high of an alcohol content, and Claire and Foggy followed as quickly as they could. They made it up the flights of stairs with (miraculously) no incident, and were soon stepping back out into the cool night air.

Matt made to go sit on the edge of the roof, but Claire and Foggy grabbed both his arms before he could get very far.

“But I wanna dangle my feet over the edge!” he protested, pushing his bottom lip out in an outrageous pout.

“Even with your super senses, there’s no way I’m letting a drunk blind man sit on the edge of a roof five stories up,” Claire said firmly.

Matt turned pleading eyes on Foggy, who just winced and admitted, “Sorry, buddy, but I’m with her. And I’m not a huge fan of heights, besides.”

Matt sighed melodramatically, but allowed himself to be led to a safer patch of roof. Claire and Foggy tilted their heads back to inspect what they could see of the stars through the city’s light pollution, and Matt breathed deeply, savoring the familiar smell of the city, mostly consisting of exhaust and concrete and decomposition, but with an underlying core of _life_ that got his blood pumping every time.

“Hey, Foggy, Claire…” Matt began hesitantly. His two friends turned to look at him, and he smiled, feeling for not the first time that night that he must be the luckiest guy in all of New York.

“I just wanted you to know, that this has been a great night and….and I’m excited to marry Frank, just because, I mean, I want to marry him, but also….I’m _extra_ excited to marry him because _you_ guys will be there,” Matt admitted with a shy smile. Claire and Foggy aww’ed in sync, leaning in to hug Matt from both sides.

Foggy broke the tender moment by snorting with laughter.

“What?” Matt needled him, “What’re you laughing about?”

“I…I still can’t believe you’re marrying a guy who, who the first thing you did to him was, you freaking….you kicked him in the _face_.” That had Matt was laughing too. “And like, then, you wrestled guns away from. And then he SHOT at you, and you go flying ass over teakettle off a roof…”

Claire almost shrieked with laughter, choking out, “ass oh-over…teakettle…oh my god…Matt, you left that out when you told me that story.”

“Hey I, I’ve knocked him on his ass too!” Matt protested blearily, struggling to remember if that was actually true. Mostly all he could remember was Frank shooting him that first time, and then kidnapping him that second time, and then they were fighting mostly on the same side the third time… “Ok, maybe he’s mostly been the kicker of ass. But! But. I still could win. In a fight. If I really had to.”

“ _Butt_!” Foggy exclaimed, ignoring the rest of Matt’s words in favor of collapsing into giggles with Claire.

“Oh!” Foggy tried to shake off the giggles and mostly succeeded, “But speaking of butts…” Claire snorted and Foggy had to hold his breath for a minute in order to keep a straight face, “Speaking of butts, Matt. Brett thinks you and a certain masked vigilante both have…similarly nice butts.”

Matt’s mouth formed into a perfect little ‘oh’ of confusion, before morphing into an ‘oh’ of alarm.

“But don’t worry!” Foggy squeezed Matt’s arm reassuringly, “I threw him off the scent. Reminded him Hell’s Kitchen has many nice butts. A veritable buffet of nice butts.”

“It’s true,” Matt nodded seriously.

“It is! So many people with fine behinds. I mean, there’s _you,_ obviously. There’s Claire,” Foggy tilted his head at Claire, who inclined hers respectfully back. “There’s Karen,” he continued. Claire nodded more vigorously. “There’s you,” Matt added when Foggy didn’t. Foggy grinned lopsidedly, and replied, “Of course, we can’t forget Frank. The owner of the most dangerous butt of them all.”

“Foggy!” Matt gasped in mock outrage, “Have you been checking out my fiancé’s ass?”

“Well _yeah_! It’s like, my sacred duty as your best friend to judge your fiancé’s ass, since it’s not like _you_ can see it!”

“But I’ve _felt_ it,” Matt countered. “And I can vouch for its quality.”

“Well, good. Okay. Now I know. But I also want to know...”

“ _What_ do you want to know?”

“Is he. You know. Is he… _good_?”

Claire hooted and Matt felt torn between blushing and cackling, with the result that he sort of choked a laugh while covering his face.

“Well, to tell the truth…” he began. Foggy leaned in eagerly, and Claire followed suit, muttering, “I’m so glad we’ve reached the sex gossip portion of the evening.”

“The truth is,” Matt continued slowly, drawing the moment out, “He is, he’s really good, _really good…_ at washing dishes.”

“What?” Foggy sounded utterly baffled, while Claire just started to snicker madly.

“He is, he’s the _best_. Like, when most people do dishes, they’re okaaaayyy, but not _good_. They miss stuff, and it’s gross, it’s _so gross_ ‘cause I can _tell_ ,” Matt leaned forward to emphasize his point and almost fell over. “Seriously!” he insisted when he regained his balance. “It’s so important. He washes dishes with, like, military rigor.”

“That’s good, Matty, ‘m glad for ya,” Foggy slurred, patting his back.

“Thank you, buddy.” Matt sent a dopey grin in his direction.

“D’you…” Foggy trailed off before plucking up the courage and mumbling, “D’you think Brett is good at washing dishes?”

Claire laughed uproariously and Matt fought hard not to do the same as he replied, “I bet, I bet he’s great at washing dishes, Fog. Like, an Olympian at dish-washing.”

“Really?” Foggy’s eyes were wide and he was so earnest that Matt couldn’t help but throw an arm around his shoulders and tug him close.

“Don’t you worry, Foggy, you’ll have your very own high quality washer-of-dishes soon, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope so,” Foggy drooped against Matt’s side, “All this wedding stuff makes me feel lonely. It’s fun ‘n stuff, but I think I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

“Ha! Well. But then you have to start planning Karen’s wedding!” Matt laughed, giving Foggy a shake.

“ _What_?” Foggy bolted upright, clutching at Matt for support as he almost overbalanced and fell backwards.

“ _Murdock_!” Claire punched Matt’s shoulder with considerable force.

“What?” he whined, pouting and rubbing at his arm, aggrieved.

“What part of ‘it’s a secret’ didn’t you understand, Mister _Secret Identity_?”

“Oh,” he realized, grimacing. “Sorry.” He turned to Foggy and pressed a hand to his mouth. “Shhhh you didn’t hear anything.”

“But _Claire_! Are you and Karen getting _married_?” Foggy managed to ask around Matt’s attempts to shush him.

“No! Yes! Maybe! Ugh.” Claire threw her hands in the air. “I haven’t asked her yet, ok? So don’t spoil it!”

“That’s so great though, Claire,” Foggy murmured dreamily, leaning back into Matt’s shoulder, “You two are so cuuuute.”

Claire’s irritation melted away as she got a similarly dreamy expression. “Yeah. We are, aren’t we?”

“Super cute,” Matt confirmed, throwing his other arm around her shoulder.

“But secret!” she added, reaching over to give Foggy’s arm a thwack for good measure.

“My lips are sealed!” he promised earnestly. “Besides,” he yawned, “I think I probably won’t remember this conversation in the morning, so…”

“Yeah,” Claire agreed, yawning in response. “Hey,” she turned to squint up at Matt, “You actually stayed the whole time!”

“Um…yeah?” Matt’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Where did you think I’d go?”

“Wherever you usually go at night!” Claire waved a hand expansively towards the cityscape.

“Yeah,” Foggy agreed, “I kinda thought you might ditch us after a few drinks to go save the pope, or something.”

“The _pope_! _Ha_!” Claire collapsed with laughter against Matt’s side, and Foggy quickly followed suit. Matt wasn’t sure what was so funny, but pretty soon he was gasping for air between giggles too.

“Oh-okay, guys, okay,” Matt tried to pull a straight face, “I think, I think we should probably go sleep it off, now.”

Foggy and Claire booed in unison, but only protested mildly as Matt tugged them to their feet and started dragging them towards the door.

They moved like a drunken conga line across the roof and down the stairs into Matt’s apartment. As they struggled to remain upright on the difficult journey into lower altitude, Foggy conceded that, “Okay, maybe bed isn’t such a bad idea.”

“I call the couch!” Claire announced, making her way across the apparently shaky carpeted terrain until she reached the sofa, whereupon she grabbed hold of the blanket hanging over the back of it and collapsed face first into the cushions. Matt made his only slightly less shaky way over to the couch, coaxing Claire until she was lying more safely on her side, and then clumsily tucking the blanket in around her.

Foggy wavered near the door to bedroom. “Sharesies?” he called cheerily over to Matt, pointing brightly at the bed.

Matt nodded and hiccupped a laugh and almost tripped over the coffee table. He finally made it to the bedroom door unscathed and found Foggy struggling to get onto the bed, which was after all, several feet above the floor, and to make such a lengthy voyage was quite a lot to ask of someone as intoxicated as he was. Matt helpfully shoved him up onto the mattress and followed, clambering over Foggy to his usual side of the bed and managing mostly through luck not to elbow him anywhere sensitive in the process.

“Hey,” Foggy sounded like something serious had just occurred to him as he turned to stare hazily at Matt, “Are you sure your fiancé won’t kill me for sleeping with you?”

“Well, as long as you don’t actually _sleep_ with me…” Matt supposed, and they both started to giggle, “Then he probably won’t kill you.”

“Okey-dokey.” Foggy settled under the sheets with a contented hum.

“Hey, buddy?” Matt whispered, tucking his pillow more comfortably under his head.

“What?” Foggy whispered back.

“Thanks for a great party.”

Foggy broke into a sleepy grin. “You’re welcome.” He reached out and clumsily patted Matt’s face. “G’night, Matty.”

Matt returned the pat with a smile. “G’night, Foggy.”

~~~~~

A hideous sound like a plane crashing repeatedly into a mountain rang through Matt’s ears and scrambled his brain, making him moan wretchedly and flop a hand out, trying to rouse the person next to him. His fingers found a warm body, but it was far softer than he was expecting, and the ensuing voice was not nearly gravelly enough.

“Though our names share the same linguistic roots, I am not the Frank you’re looking for,” Foggy muttered into the mattress, whacking Matt’s probing hand away.

“ _Wow_ , Franklin. You sound _way_ too sober. Go away and open the door.” Matt flicked his wrist in the direction of the entrance, where the horrible noise he’d finally recognized as knocking was coming from.

“ _You_ open the door, it’s your apartment.”

“ _You_ open the door, this whole party was your idea.”

They bickered for a minute longer before Matt realized that Foggy was quite capable of passing back out despite the racket, while he was not. So, he clambered inelegantly over Foggy and tumbled off the side of the bed, just barely avoiding cracking his head on the bedside table, and staggered to the door.

He wrenched it open to find Karen, standing tall and smelling sweetly of perfume, and overall not seeming nearly hungover enough considering that Matt’s brains felt like mashed potatoes and he thought it was only right that everyone else felt the same.

“Hey, there!” She greeted him, sounding nauseatingly chipper, “I came to trade you significant others.”

“Okay…” Matt tilted his head, senses jumbled but still able to inform him that Karen was definitely alone. “Except you don’t seem to have mine in tow…So, I might have to hold yours hostage…”

“Oh, he’s coming. I left him a few flights down to negotiate the steps at his own pace.”

Matt winced, sending out sympathetic thought waves in Frank’s direction. “You drank him under the table, huh?”

“Who, me?” Karen demurred, the picture of innocence as she swished past Matt.

Karen spoke at a volume that was frankly cruel as she continued, “It turns out that when Frank’s had a few, he’s a dab hand at karaoke. I had to drag him down when he tried to climb up on the bar tables.”

Matt blinked hard. “What. I mean – _really_?”

“No, Matt, we drank hard liquor in silence and passed out on my couch watching Antiques Roadshow.”

Matt sighed. “That sounds about right.”

A moment later, Matt’s poor abused head informed him that the loud stomping coming from outside the door was the sound of Frank’s heavy boots dragging their owner ponderously up the stairs.

As Frank rounded the corner and staggered into the apartment, he announced without preamble, “That woman can _drink_.”

Matt nodded his agreement and immediately regretted it, because the movement rattled his brain which turned his stomach which reminded him that he was probably dying.

“Bed,” Frank declared, and turned to make his way across the room, using the furniture in his wake as a support system.

That idea sounded really good to Matt, which accounted for why he didn’t realize until it was far too late that that was actually a _very bad idea_.

Frank let out an indignant roar which had Matt scrambling across the living room.

Foggy was cowering in bed with the sheets pulled up to his ears, while Frank towered over him, a dark pillar of hungover rage. Matt stumbled around the corner, clutching at the door as Frank rounded on him.

“ _Murdock_.” Matt cringed. Bringing out the last name was never a good sign. “Did you let Nelson sleep…on _my_ side of the bed.”

“Well…” Matt fought the urge to shrink back, instead taking a step forward to try and put himself between his best friend and his fiancé.

Foggy sounded objectively terrified as he whined pitifully, “Maaaatt, you said he wouldn’t kill me.”

“I said he _probably_ wouldn’t kill you.”

“Not helping!”

Without warning, Frank shoved a hand under Foggy’s pillow, making him squeal and jerk away even  as Frank withdrew, his fingers clamped around….a 9mm pistol.

Foggy stared at the gun and whispered, “That’s why this pillow felt so lumpy.”

Frank jammed a hand under the fitted sheet and produced a mean looking hunting knife as he growled, “It’s _my side_ for a reason, pork chop.”

Foggy gaped and tilted his head in Matt’s direction, though he didn’t take his eyes off of Frank as he asked, “Did you _know_ that Frank’s whole side of the bed was armed?”

“I should…probably have mentioned that,” Matt admitted, shuffling guiltily.

“ _Probably_?” Foggy squeaked, voice hopping up a few octaves.

Foggy’s mounting terror was interrupted by a buzz from his phone. He reached slowly for it, not taking his eyes off of Frank until he spared a glance for his screen. And then another glance, and then he was staring at it, dumbfounded.

“Uh. Matt. Do you. Do you know why my mom is texting me ‘congratulations?’ And telling me that I should bring Brett by sometime?”

“Um…if I’m remembering things correctly…it could possibly be because you made out with him a little bit last night…”

“Oh god.”

“You frenched your cop friend?” Frank asked bluntly, sounding more entertained than homicidal now, which was a definite improvement, though Foggy didn’t seem reassured.

“Hey, no, there was no _frenching_ –” Foggy protested, drawing up short at Matt’s pointed cough. “Unless…there was…”

“I mean, buddy, you’re not one to do things halfway…” Matt pointed out gently. “In fact, you may or may not have tried to go home with him, if memory serves…”

“Oh _god_.” Foggy buried his head in the pillow, letting out a strangled sort of noise.

“Move your ass, lover boy,” Frank gave the bedframe a kick, making the whole contraption (and Foggy on it) shake. “I want my bed back.”

Foggy nearly fell off the mattress in his haste to get out of the way of Frank’s death glare, clutching his phone to his heart.

Frank growled low in his throat as he grabbed the pillow Foggy had been using and hurled it to the ground with great prejudice, before snagging Matt’s pillow and collapsing on top of the sheets.

Karen, who’d been watching the whole drama unfold from the doorway with great amusement, stepped quietly forward to take Foggy’s arm, murmuring, “C’mon, I’ve gotcha. I’ll get some food in you and my sleeping beauty, and you’ll be good as new.”

Foggy moaned woefully and Claire said nothing, because she had continued to sleep peacefully through Karen and Frank’s arrival and Foggy’s ejection from the bed.

Karen roused Claire and dragged her to her feet, Claire acquiescing with minimal complaints as she buried her face in Karen’s hair. Matt trailed behind the three to the door, making sure they seemed steady enough to leave. He was reassured on that front by Karen’s sobriety, though he had to admit it also alarmed him considering the state Frank was in.

As soon as he’d shut and locked the door behind them, Matt dragged his way back to the bedroom, climbing unceremoniously over Frank (much to his displeasure) to collapse on his other side. Matt moaned when he remembered Frank had kidnapped his pillow, and burrowed closer in an attempt to use Frank as a makeshift substitute. Frank’s annoyed grumbling got louder. “Don’t try any funny business,” he warned as he tried to shove Matt away, to no avail.

Matt scoffed. “Too hungover for funny business. Also, you pulled a gun on my friend, and I think I should be mad at you for that.”

“I didn’t pull it _on_ him. And you should just be glad I didn’t pull out the garroting wire. Then he might’ve actually fainted.”

Matt sighed indulgently, and reached out to extricate the weapons Frank was still clutching in his hands. Frank tightened his grip, but Matt finally managed to wrench the gun and blade free, setting them safely on the bedside table.

“I don’t want you to accidentally stab me,” he explained patiently, as he was feeling less nauseous and headachy with every passing moment, and it was making him quite amiable.

“Who says it would be an accident?” Frank shot back, sounding rather less than amiable.

Matt grinned, and popped forward to drop a kiss on Frank’s nose, laughing when he twitched and tried to shy away.

“I love you, you violent lunatic,” Matt murmured affectionately, snuggling closer despite Frank’s continued protests. Frank froze at that, allowing Matt to sneak under his arm and tuck his head against Frank’s chest, just under his chin. Frank stayed immobile for a minute longer, before letting out a resigned sigh, and flopping his arm down around Matt’s ribs, grumbling, “You love _me_ , and _I’m_ the lunatic?”

“Let’s compare our respective levels of crazy later, hmm?” Matt suggested drowsily, sleep already tugging at his consciousness.

“Yeah, fine.” They settled down, and minutes passed with nothing but their slow breathing between them as Matt drifted closer and closer to unconsciousness. But then Frank shifted abruptly and whispered roughly into Matt’s hair, “Just for the record…I love you too.” He clamped his mouth quickly shut as soon as the words escaped, but Matt had already caught them and was wrapping them up tight and close to his heart. A wide smile stretched his face, and he nuzzled at Frank’s collarbone in what he thought was probably as much acknowledgement as Frank could take.

They didn’t say anything else, and they didn’t have to, and Matt decided in the privacy of his own mind that this was probably the best bachelor party that anyone had ever had.


	3. Chapter 3

In the early days of their relationship, Matt and Frank had slipped in and out of each other’s lives at will, with no concrete promises of return. Matt had tried to convince himself that it was fine, that _he_ was fine; if Frank didn’t show up at his apartment for a whole week and Matt hadn’t heard hide or hair of him in all of New York, it was just _fine_.

But really, the least Frank could do is blow away a few goons in the Kitchen so that Matt would at least know he was _alive_. It was when he had that last thought that Matt decided they needed a proper check-in system, so that he didn’t get irrational with worry, or start hoping to find dead bodies riddled with Frank’s signature bullet wounds.

When Frank had finally rolled back into town, materializing in Matt’s apartment like he hadn’t been gone for eight days and didn’t smell unpleasantly like the inside of a slaughterhouse, the first thing Matt had done was plant a burner phone in his hand. (Well, technically the first thing he’d done was punch him hard in the shoulder, and the second thing he’d done was kiss him roughly, so technically the phone was the third thing.)

“From now on, you check in with a call or a text every 24 hours,” Matt had announced, tapping the plastic brick that Frank was giving a suspicious once-over. “My number’s already programmed in. I expect you to be prompt.”

“Oh, yeah? Or what.”

“Or I’ll go looking for you,” Matt responded with dark promise.

“Mmm…” Frank sidled a little closer to Matt, whose nose twitched irritably at his stench, but whose fingers slipped rebelliously forward to toy with the hem of his grimy t-shirt, “I’m kinda tempted to get you to do just that.”

“I’d make you regret it.”

Frank grinned wickedly. “You promise?”

Matt did.

Now, it was three days before the wedding, and Frank had been MIA for two, with only the sparsest of messages informing Matt that he was “still alive” and would be “home soon.” Matt wasn’t particularly reassured.

It wasn’t until he heard Frank’s heartbeat coming clear and strong from a few blocks east that Matt finally started to unwind. By the time Frank swung the roof access door open and started clomping down the stairs, Matt had arranged himself carelessly on the couch, legal papers strewn around him like he’d been working for the last few hours instead of worrying as Frank’s 24 hour check-in grew nearer. Matt didn’t know why he bothered to act unaffected, Frank could always tell.

“Sorry I kept you up,” Frank grunted, tossing himself down on the sofa next to Matt.

“Hmm?” Matt tilted his head in Frank’s direction like he’d just noticed him, “Oh, no, I was just finishing up some paperwork.”

Frank leaned in close, pressing his face to Matt’s neck, where Matt could feel his lips turn up in a small smile, “Whatever you say, Red.”

Matt sighed more fondly than he meant to, and shifted to pull Frank closer to his chest. “So, what’ve you been up to?” he asked, running a hand through Frank’s short-cropped hair.

“Nothing you’d wanna know about,” Frank answered shortly, and Matt wouldn’t have needed super senses to tell that Frank had just gone tense in his arms.

“Really. Because the way you say that makes me feel like I _do_ wanna know about it.”

Frank exhaled deeply as he pulled away from Matt to sit up properly. “Let’s just say… it’s a good thing we’re getting married so soon, because I might have to deal with some…. _things_ , in the very near future.”

“Three days,” Matt stated coolly, crossing his arms. “That’s when our wedding is. In 72 hours. Can’t your ‘things’ wait until then?”

“I guess we’ll see,” Frank replied evasively, making Matt groan and throw his head back against the cushions in aggravation.

“ _Frank_. _Castle_. Are you telling me you can’t keep your gun in your holster for _three days_?”

“A lot of people can die in three days. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“But you _are_ telling me that this is more important than our _wedding_?”

“Yes,” Frank answered, unapologetic. “It is, and you know it. You think so too. That’s why what we’ve got works, because we’re both serving a higher purpose. Doing what has to be done.”

Matt felt all the irritation drain out of his body in a rush, and he scooted forward to lean into Frank’s broad chest at the sudden emptiness it left him with. “Yeah, you’re right,” he murmured softly into Frank’s skin. “You do whatever you need to do.”

“I will,” Frank replied gravely. “But don’t worry…” his tone lightened and Matt heard the pull of lips over teeth as Frank smiled down at him, “I promise I won’t stand you up at the altar. If I have to blow up half the city, I’ll be there.”

“Ok. Sentiment noted. But,” Matt winced, “you aren’t planning on… _actually_ blowing up half the city, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Did you really have to ask?”

“Uh….yes.”

Frank chuckled and tucked Matt closer under his chin. “Smart man.”

~~~~~

“Happy anniversary,” Frank murmured as he tangled a hand in Matt’s hair and ducked down to press a kiss to the side of his neck.

“We’re not married, yet,” Matt laughed, setting the book he’d been reading aside. “That’s tomorrow, remember?”

“Mmm, not that anniversary.”

“Then of what? Of...of the first time we got married?" Matt perked up, his romantic side tossing rose petals in the air at the thought.

"Not quite..." Frank pulled something metal that jangled from his pocket, holding it out so Matt could run his fingers along the round, padded edges of what felt an awful lot like…hand cuffs. "It’s the anniversary of that night I had you chained up on a roof, all to myself."

"Holy... _shit_ ,” Matt bolted out of his chair, “Frank, you _fucker_ ,” He began to pace, blood rushing to his face in what he decided was definitely _anger_ , not embarrassment, and _definitely_ not arousal, “I cannot _believe_...you...just... _ugh_!"

Matt threw his arms in the air in a show of disgust, but Frank slipped easily into his space, gently pressing Matt’s arms back down to his sides as he murmured, breath hot against Matt's ear, "Don't tell me you didn't like it. Just a little bit."

"Being kidnapped by a psychopath? No, oddly enough I didn't,” Matt snipped, turning his face away from Frank’s, but admittedly making no real move to step away.

"Being tied up,” Frank whispered, lips brushing against the shell of Matt’s ear and sending sparks racing down his spine, “Letting someone else take control. You liked it, you can say it."

"I...I _didn't_ ," Matt insisted weakly, but his fingers were acting entirely of their own accord and reaching out to caress the smooth edges of the cuffs. Frank stared pointedly down at Matt’s traitorous digits, smirk solidly in place. That was one of the most completely infuriating things about Frank, Matt decided: he had a surplus of absolute confidence in his convictions. Unfortunately, it was also one of the most attractive things about him.

No. Matt pursed his lips and tried to cross his arms, hindered by how close Frank was standing. This just _wasn’t_ something he talked about. He hadn’t admitted it to anyone since college, since _her_ , and look how that had ended.

Frank did that highly unnerving thing just then, where he seemed to have a window into Matt’s thoughts, as he murmured, “It’s _me_ , Red. I’m not doing this to screw with you. I’m doing it because I think you _want_ it. And I’m kind of in the business of giving you the things you want.”

“Are you really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“I trust you,” Frank continued over Matt’s automatic sarcastic response, “And you can trust me.” He smoothed gentle hands down Matt’s arms and Matt shivered, entranced like always by how someone who spent his life dispensing death could still have a trace of softness left in him. A softness that was only for him, only for Matt.

“If I’m barking up the wrong tree here, you’re welcome to sock me in the jaw and tell me so.” Frank took a step back, enough so that when Matt breathed in there was something other than just _him_ , his scent, his being. Matt could think clearly, but it didn’t change the way something inside him was reaching out for Frank and what he was offering.

“If you say, I won’t bring it up again,” Frank shrugged, and the movement made the cuffs jangle, a melody of steel that rang in Matt’s ears.

Matt’s stiff upper lip faltered and his hands reached up to spread against Frank’s chest as he finally admitted, "It was just the _tiniest_ bit hot. That night."

Frank grinned, triumphant.

"Do _not_ take this as a sign that I want to be kidnapped again,” Matt insisted with a firm point of his finger in Frank’s face, “ _Or_ tied up with rusty chains on a filthy rooftop."

"No, no, Red, nothing like that. I'm thinking of our bed, with silk sheets and these lovely new cuffs."

He scraped the cuffs up Matt’s arm without warning and Matt shivered again, harder this time, a whine trying to escape his throat as the cool touch of the metal sent his nerve endings up in flames.

Frank moved back in close, his breath mingling with Matt’s again as he whispered roughly, "Just say that you want it, just tell me and I'll do whatever you want. Just tell me... God, Red, _I'm_ not blind, I can see how you're reacting at just the thought..." He ran a finger suddenly up the zip of Matt's slacks, straining over the erection he'd been trying valiantly to ignore. 

“This is….it’s personal,” Matt tried to keep his tone even and mostly succeeded, “It’s not something I’ve shared with…well, almost anyone.”

“Good thing I’m not anyone then,” Frank retorted, and Matt snorted a laugh, relaxing fractionally.

Frank backed them slowly towards the bed, and Matt wanted to just melt into it, let Frank do whatever he wanted, do what Matt _needed_ , but –

“I just…I don’t like the way I want it. Or the way I _don’t_ want it, I _don’t_ want control, I want someone else to –” Matt cut himself off with a frustrated growl, his words failing him

“But that’s why it’s _perfect_ , Red,” Frank moved to suddenly cup Matt’s face in both hands, “This is _exactly_ what I want to give you. This is what I _can_ give you, even if I can’t give you so many other things. I can take the weight off your shoulders. I can be what you can’t and do what you can’t. You can leave some of the hard decisions to me.” Frank leaned in, dragging Matt’s bottom lip between his teeth, licking and nipping and just _taking_ his mouth, and Matt wanted to give him _everything_.

“We’re not just talking about handcuffs anymore, are we,” Matt gasped when Frank relinquished his hold, resting their foreheads together as they caught their breath.

“No, not really.”

Matt squeezed his eyes shut, like that made any difference, before saying in as clear a tone as he could manage with his breath still coming in pants, “Frank. I want you to cuff me to that bed right now and fuck me with everything you got.”

He opened his eyes, knowing that Frank’s pulse always jumped when he saw them, as he added, “Is that amenable to you?”

“ _Amenable_ — ? For _fuck’s_ sake, Red.” Frank illustrated his enthusiastic consent by lifting Matt bodily up on the mattress and then quickly pouncing on top of him with a thrillingly feral sort of growl.

Frank dragged Matt’s shirt gracelessly over his head before wrapping his hands around Matt’s wrists dragging them up to the headboard.

“ _Stay_ ,” he rumbled in Matt’s ear as he let go and reached for the cuffs, and Matt eagerly complied. Each tiny click of metal as Frank opened the cuffs had Matt’s heart going double time, and it became increasingly difficult to stay still when he just _wanted_. Finally, Frank stretched up, straddling Matt’s hips as he reached to close one cuff around his left wrist, wind the chain through the slats of the headboard, and close Matt’s right wrist in the other cuff. At that last snap of metal, Matt’s whole body relaxed. He sank into the sheets, feeling almost weightless and yet held safely, snugly down to earth. He breathed in and out deeply though his nose, readjusting to the heady feeling of being in someone else’s hands, a feeling he’d been denying himself for so long.

“How’s that feel?” Frank murmured, giving the metal a little tug and observing how the lightly padded insides dragged at Matt’s wrists.

“Good,” Matt murmured back after a moment, when he realized he actually needed to answer that question.

“You wanna have a safeword, or whatever?” Frank grumbled, fingers tightening eagerly in the sheets on either side of Matt, though he held back for the time being. “Something to say if you want me to stop?”

“Sure. How about, ‘stop fucking doing that or I’ll kick your ass’?”

“Seems a little wordy, but it works for me.” They grinned at each other, Matt a little giddily, feeling light as air and so much more than ready for Frank to go to town on him. When Frank seemed all too content with staying still, Matt prompted him with a nudge of his knee, raising his eyebrows up at Frank.

“Are you just going to stare at me all day or…?”

“Can you blame me? Jesus, Red, the way you look right now…”

Matt preened unabashedly, arching his back as Frank’s hands stroked at his sides. “How do I look, Frank? Tell me.”

“You look perfect, just…all laid out for me. You’re so open. And you’re all mine.”

“All yours,” Matt hummed happily, tugging at the cuffs and savoring the pull on his wrists.

“What about me?”

“Hmm?”

“What do I…sound like, or feel like, or whatever?”

“Mmmm…” Matt let his head fall back, taking in the scene with his senses, letting them dive deep. “You sound like… an old tree.” Frank let out a disbelieving sort of laugh, but Matt just continued, tone slightly dreamy, “You’re almost silent unless you know what to listen for, and then you’re a symphony. You’re part of nature, a force of nature. Huge and unyielding. You feel so _solid_ , all the time, even when you’re full of bullet holes and stab wounds. You’re immovable. Yeah,” Matt nodded to himself, pleased with the description, “that’s what you’re like.”

“I feel like that was a compliment, but I’m really not sure.”

“Oh, it’s _definitely_ a compliment…” Matt leered up at Frank, “I’ve always liked climbing trees.”

Frank shook his head ruefully, leaning away as Matt giggled to himself. “You’re ridiculous and I should _definitely_ just leave you tied up here.”

“Aw, no…” Matt pouted up at Frank and it was unusually effective, making Frank lean back down and capture his mouth in a kiss in under ten seconds. Matt hummed happily, but gasped and pulled at the chain of the cuffs when Frank slipped away, his mouth dragging down Matt’s jaw, his throat, over his collarbone and down to his chest. He detoured in his downward path to tease at Matt’s nipples, licking and biting till he whined, and then for a little while longer. He finally moved with decisiveness down past Matt’s navel, unzipping his pants and hooking his fingers inside the waistband to pull them and Matt’s boxers down in one fell swoop. Matt inhaled sharply at the rush of cool air on his exposed skin, and cried out a moment later when, without warning, Frank’s hot mouth descended on his cock. Frank worked fast and steady, with a single-mindedness that had Matt straining at the cuffs and swearing in minutes.

Frank pulled off long enough to ask, “You doing ok up there, Red?”

“I’m doing fucking fantastic as long as you _don’t fucking stop_ ,” Matt hissed back, his hands itching to dig into Frank’s skin, to tug at his hair. Every sensation was even hotter and dizzier as he was continually reminded that he couldn’t.

“Alright, jeez,” Frank chuckled a little as he leaned back down, “Awfully bossy for the guy who’s tied down.” Matt would’ve retorted with something witty, he was sure, but then Frank’s mouth was on him again and words suddenly seemed unimportant.

Matt came down his throat a few minutes later, Frank swallowing with the same determination with which he did everything. Matt lolled back against the sheets, rolling his wrists lazily in the cuffs. His quietly blissful expression perked up into active excitement when he heard the pop of the cap on the lube, and the slick sound of Frank’s fingers. He almost moaned at the first touch between his legs, oversensitive and yet hungry for something else. He felt loose and easy and…safe. He rolled that sensation around in his mind for a moment, tasting it and poking it until he realized that it really wasn’t anything new. It was how he’d felt with Frank for a long time, even though he hadn’t wanted to admit that that’s what it was, earlier on. Because the fact was, there was no one in the world who could protect him better than Frank, and honestly, there was no one else who he’d trust so entirely with the job.

“What’re you thinking about, Red?” Frank asked, voice soft as he slid his first finger inside, slow and careful, letting Matt’s body relax and adjust around him.

“You,” Matt answered easily, feeling peaceful and secure like he hadn’t for a long time (or possibly ever.)

“Really?” Frank’s tone was clearly supposed to be something closer to sardonic, but there was a note of genuine amazement in it that had Matt quirking his head in Frank’s direction.

“You sound… surprised?” Matt prompted gently, trying to disentangle the reason why, in Frank’s mind, Matt would be thinking about anything else.

“It’s just that you look so…happy.”

Matt laughed and brushed his ankles against Frank’s calves, settling into the stretch with a pleased sigh, “That’s because I _am_ happy, numbskull. _You_ make me happy, Frank. When I don’t want to kill you, anyway.”

Frank huffed a laugh, and gave Matt’s thigh a teasing sort of squeeze. “Imagine that. Me, making someone happy.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Name one.”

Matt pondered that for a moment before replying with a grin that was equal parts mischievous and expectant, “You _being_ happy.”

“You’re right,” Frank agreed without missing a beat, “That is damn strange.”

“Still not sure how to deal with that particular emotion?”

“Eh. I’ll figure it out eventually….I’ve got someone to help me.”

“Oh, really? Who?” Matt smiled innocently at Frank, who responded in a casual drawl, “It’s this guy I’m marrying. Total jackass. Thinks he’s always right. Don’t know why I put up with ‘im, honestly.”

“Mmm…why _do_ you put up with him?”

“Well, he’s got this thirst for justice thing going on that’s kinda sexy, and he has a pretty spectacular tolerance for my bullshit, and a stubborn streak that’s actually really hot, and _christ_ he’s got a _perfect_ mouth…” Frank bent to whisper against Matt’s lips, “and he’s pretty fucking great in bed.”

“Well, as long as you’ve thought about the really _important_ things…” They both laughed as they fell into a clumsy kiss, Frank’s free hand tangling in Matt’s hair while his other worked steadily between his legs. Matt eased gladly into Frank’s knowing touch, expertly stretching him open with a familiarity borne of time and care. Matt tugged happily against the handcuffs and wondered to himself why the hell he hadn’t asked Frank to do this for him before, when it felt like his whole body had been purged of something dark and heavy and he hadn’t even been properly fucked yet.

A few lazy kisses later, Frank pulled away, his fingers slipping out of Matt and making him mewl a little piteously at the empty feeling.

“You ready, gorgeous?” Frank murmured, and Matt shivered at the praise and the promise in Frank’s voice.

“Yeah,” he replied, voice shaky but sure. He felt the shift in the air as Frank nodded, and then moved swiftly to drag Matt’s legs up over his waist, lining up with his entrance and pressing in.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Matt choked a little, because it felt different when his hands weren’t on Frank, when he wasn’t feeling the other man’s muscles shifting under his fingers, sending miniscule signals ahead of his every movement… it was _intense_.

“That’s a good ‘fuck,’ right?” Frank panted above Matt, arms trembling finely with the effort of staying still, “I’m gonna need some confirmation here.”

“Yes, it’s good, it’s _so good_ , Frank.” It was a slick heat and a burning pressure, the sensations heightened right up to the threshold of Matt’s tolerance and nudging that line.

Frank grunted, pleased, and pushed in further, biting down a moan when he finally slid all the way inside. “Everything I’ve got, right, Red? That’s what you said you wanted?”

Matt’s mouth was hanging open, his eyes even more glazed over than usual as he tried to focus on what Frank was saying. “Yeah…you think….you think you’re up to the challenge?” he grinned faintly up at Frank, already sure of the answer.

Frank’s reply was to pull out and then slam back inside Matt hard, making Matt’s toes curl and a moan escape his lips. Frank moved with an experimental focus, pulling Matt’s body this way and that, maneuvering his limbs until he found the right angle that had Matt clenching down on Frank and yanking at the cuffs. He started to moan in earnest, relishing the easy manhandling as much as the sparking heat that flew up his spine every time Frank hit that spot inside him.

He pulled Matt’s hips down on his cock, dragging him further away from the headboard, stretching his arms above his head and forcing Matt to arch his back.

The noises spilling out of his throat were getting louder and less controlled, and at one particularly well-aimed thrust he actually shouted, surprising himself. Not to say that he was usually silent in bed, that was more Frank’s territory, but this was different. These noises were punched out of him, he couldn’t wrestle them down when he was open like this and it was _intoxicating_. He was exhilarated; Frank always made him feel a little unbound, a little undone, but this was a whole new level, one he wanted to explore again and again and again…

“ _Harder_ ,” he urged Frank with a squeeze of his ankles at his back, and Frank complied with great zeal. He fucked Matt harder and faster, sweat slicking their bodies, and it was almost perfect, and Matt was so close, but he needed…he needed…

“Frank,” Matt breathed, “Could you…please…” He wasn’t able to use his hands to show Frank what he wanted, he had to say it out loud and it was hard, but he _wanted_ it.

“What is it, Red? What do you need?” Frank slowed down, and _that_ wasn’t what he wanted; Matt gathered his courage and managed to say it: “Please, could you…your hand… on my throat.”

Frank froze and Matt almost wanted to take the words back, but then Frank started to move his hips again, shallow and distracted as his hand slid up Matt’s chest to close carefully around his neck, much more a caress than a choke.

“Like this?” he asked, voice warm and steady, calming Matt’s anxiety over revealing yet another piece of himself.

“Yeah, just like that. Just a little pressure. So that I know. You could…but you won’t.” Matt barely got those last words out, his voice failing him. But Frank got the picture, his fingers twitching experimentally around Matt’s neck.

“Ok. It’s ok, Red.” His thumb traced circles against Matt’s pulse, and he started to thrust back into him in earnest, and _that_ was it, _that_ was Matt was searching for. He strained at the cuffs to the point that the headboard started to complain, with every breath he felt Frank’s fingers pressing into the column of his throat, his hips were locked in Frank’s grip and his cock was trapped between their stomachs and he couldn’t move, didn’t _have_ to, he didn’t have to do anything, just lie there and feel it, feel _everything_ , except it wasn’t overwhelming it was all-encompassing, his whole body pinned down and united and wrapped around _him_ …

Matt came again with a full-body shudder, slumping impossibly further into the bed while Frank’s pace picked up, the mattress creaking as he dragged Matt’s hips up higher and buried himself deeper. The hand that had been on Matt’s throat snaked up to tangle with his fingers, hanging limply from the cuffs, and Frank’s lips were whispering something against Matt’s skin, but he couldn’t quite understand it over the blood still rushing in his ears, and then Frank was following him over the edge.

When the last shakes had rippled through him, Frank’s hand reached up to fumble blindly at the latch on the cuffs, since Frank was apparently devoted to the idea of keeping his face buried in Matt’s neck, a concept Matt hardly took issue with. The cuffs finally clicked open and Matt’s wrists fell free. He groaned, stretching his arms and savoring the ache deep in his shoulders from being held at an awkward angle for so long, hoping it would stick around long enough to remind him of this moment, where his body ached with pleasure instead of violence. Frank’s hands came up to start rubbing a little clumsily over Matt’s arms, up to the juncture of his shoulder and neck, fingers digging into the abused tissue as they massaged the feeling back into Matt’s limbs. When he felt capable of moving them properly again, Matt wasted no time in wrapping his arms around Frank’s back, soaking up the heat of his sweat-soaked skin with his chilled fingers.

He realized Frank was muttering something again, the words garbled and confused against Matt’s neck.

“Hey, Frank,” Matt nudged him gently in the ribs until he pulled back enough to speak intelligibly, “What is it?”

“I love you,” Frank managed to say a little more clearly, though his voice was still rough.

“I love you too,” Matt replied, pleased, stroking a hand along Frank’s shoulder, up his neck, into his hair.

“No, you don’t get it. I _love_ you. You fucking devil-worshipping, soft-hearted, kinky, arrogant… _idiot_. I fucking love you. So you _can’t_ ….” Frank sucked in a deep breath, like the air was being pulled from his lungs, “You. Don’t you _dare_ die on me, ever.”

Matt blinked, hand stilling in Frank’s hair as he tried to comprehend how they’d gone from fabulous sex to…worrying about death? He repressed an affectionate sigh, because really, it was just so _Frank_.

“I won’t die, Frank, I promise,” Matt assured him lightly.

Frank rolled aside enough to look at Matt’s face as he replied darkly, “You know that’s not a promise you can keep.”

Matt tilted his head to approximate looking Frank in the eye as he grinned playfully at him. “But I _can_ die trying…”

“For fuck’s sake…” Frank rolled even further away, sending Matt’s hands skittering after him, tugging on his arms weakly to try and pull him back.

“Ok, I’m sorry, that was a little cruel…” Matt got hold of one of Frank’s hands and tried to drag Frank’s warmth back to his side.

“ _Red_.” Frank’s tone was serious, urgent, and his heart was doing something heavy and pained that Matt had never heard it do before, and that more than anything convinced him to shut up and listen. “I just…” Frank’s voice sounded like it was threatening to break, and Matt couldn’t fathom what was going on in that head of his to make him act this way–

“I don't want to be a widowed all over again,” Frank admitted in a hollow voice. “I can't take it.”

Oh.

Matt tried to come up with something to say, something that was both comforting and true, but came up short. He slid a cautious hand up to Frank’s face, searching for any extra clues as to how Frank was feeling, what he expected from Matt…but his typically grim countenance offered no easy answers.

Matt finally settled on asking cautiously, “Have you been thinking about this for a while?”

“Yeah. I just… I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. We all might die any second, that just means we have to hold onto what we’ve got that much harder, but…”

“But we’re getting married tomorrow,” Matt finished, heart beating faster as his fingers slid from Frank’s cheek to grip his hand. “And that’s kind of bringing it to a head.”

“Yeah.”

“Frank, I…I don’t know what to say.” He really didn’t.

“You don’t have to say anything. Words don’t mean a lot to me, you know that. Hell, I don’t even know what I’m asking you for.”

“I think…” Matt began carefully, choosing his words with meticulous care, “you’re asking for something we all want, but can’t have. For the people we love to be safe from harm, for them to never be taken from us, for them to never hurt. It’s very…human of you.” Matt squeezed Frank’s hand and offered him a lopsided smile. “Imagine that, Frank, you’re still human inside.”

Frank squeezed his hand back, just slightly hesitantly. “And after all the time I’ve spent with you, I think I actually believe that.”

“I guess that’s why you’re marrying me. Not just for my sexual prowess.”

“No, not _just_ for that…” Matt felt the tension bleed away as Frank lurched forward to tackle Matt back on the bed, pressing biting kisses to his lips, his jaw, his neck. As Frank slowed, nipping contentedly at Matt’s collarbone, Matt decided to voice his thoughts, telling Frank, “Just for the record, you remind me of what it means to be human, too.”

Frank scoffed against Matt’s chest, but Matt pressed on, “No, I’m serious. You…you have the whole breadth of humanity, of free will inside you, from the dark to the light. You’re life _and_ death and it’s…it’s _dizzying_ to be around. Addictive. And I–”

Frank suddenly snorted a laugh, and Matt drew up indignantly. “ _What_?” he demanded to know.

“It’s just, it sounded like you were gonna say ‘I can’t quit you.’”

“And…?”

“It’s from that movie…” Frank read the incomprehension and growing annoyance in Matt’s face and shook his head, “Never mind.”

“You’re kinda ruining my moment here, Frank,” Matt pouted.

“Good. Consider it payback for all the kills of mine you’ve botched.”

Matt flopped dramatically back on the pillows with a sigh. “One second I want to kiss you, and then next I want to punch you. How do you do it, Frank?”

“It’s all that _humanity_ ,” Frank leered.

Matt threw a hand over his face. “I regret everything.”

“Wait until _after_ we’ve said our vows to use that line.”

Matt rolled his eyes, but snaked an arm out to wrap around Frank’s shoulders and pull him closer again. “The only thing I would’ve regretted would be if I’d left you to the cops in that graveyard, all those months ago.”

Frank hmmed contemplatively as he settled himself on Matt’s chest. “Looking back…in a way, that was the best day of my life.”

“Mmm. Aside from the torture?”

“Eh. A little torture never hurt anyone.”

“See? You are,” Matt snatched up a pillow and thwacked it hard down on Frank’s face, to his grunt of surprise, “just,” another hit, “so,” Frank grabbed his wrists, “fucking,” the pillow fell back on the mattress, “ _ridiculous_ ,” Frank flipped them, pinning Matt down.

“That’s why you love me, though, isn’t it, Red? Say it. Say you love me.”

Matt let out a pleased sort of purr as Frank’s rough grip pressed against the skin of his wrists, still tender after straining against the cuffs. “I do, I love you, Frank.”

“Say it again.”

“I love you. I _love_ you.”

Frank licked up the column of Matt’s throat, his heartrate going steadily up at every word coming out of Matt’s mouth.

“I’ll tell you I love you as many times as you want,” Matt murmured, “Just promise me one thing…”

“What?”

Matt sent a hopeful grin up at Frank as he replied, “Next time, you’ll tie my legs down too.”

Frank chuckled darkly and squeezed Matt’s wrists. “I _promise_.”

~~~~~

Matt woke up slowly, sensory information filtering into his consciousness in gentle, easy pieces, for once. As the scent of baking bread and the sweat of early morning joggers seeped in from the street below, Matt stretched luxuriously, basking in the delicate warmth of the sun dappling his bed. He felt content, and deliciously sore, and…alone.

No, scratch that: there was a heartbeat in the apartment, just not the one he was expecting.

“ _Foggy_?” Matt shoved himself upright with one arm, the other scrubbing over his face as he tried to get a feel for what time it was. “How did you get in here?”

“Good morning to you too!” Foggy called, peeking his head around the bedroom door, “And, your lovely fiancé let me in.”

“Ok. And where _is_ Frank?” Matt pulled the sheets around his waist and bent over the side of the bed to feel around for some pants.

“I sent him off to Karen, she’ll look after him for today.”

“Uh, why?” Matt asked, shimmying into the pair of boxers he’d managed to retrieve.

“Because it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding!”

“Neither of us is a bride!”

“Well, groom then!”

“And I can’t see him either way!” Matt threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Well…he can see _you_!” Foggy argued, crossing his arms firmly. “Anyway, this is your last day as a bachelor, do you really want to spend it with your future ball and chain?”

“ _Yes_ , actually. That’s kind of the point of getting married; I want to spend my life with him.”

Foggy’s heart did something at those words that Matt didn’t know what to make of.

“Yeah, I figured,” he mumbled, all the fire gone from his tone. “I just was hoping that I wouldn’t have to actually _say_ the embarrassing truth, which is that _I_ want to get to spend today with you. It’s the last day where you’ll be….I mean, after this…you’ll be _married_. No more avocados, you know?”

“What?” Matt felt a little floored. “Foggy, I didn’t know you thought…you are my _best friend_. Now and forever. We are avocados at law _forever_. Getting married won’t change that.” Matt hopped off his bed and stepped forward so he could grasp Foggy’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll still be the same guy. I’ll still be there next to you in the office every day, I’ll still help you wipe the floor with our legal opponents, and I’ll still make dumb decisions and pretend to listen to you when you say to be more careful.”

Foggy huffed a laugh, but his voice was small and vulnerable as he said, “You promise? I won’t be sitting in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere all by myself as the years pass?”

“Nope,” Matt shook his head, slinging an arm around Foggy’s shoulders and leading him out into the living room, “I’ll be in a matching rocking chair right next to you. We can send Frank out to kill bears with his hands or something for food, if he gets bored. I promise.”

“Okay,” Foggy grinned and squeezed Matt’s side before letting him go.

“Okay.” Matt made a beeline for the kitchen, suddenly starving. “And hey,” he shot a grin over his shoulder at Foggy, “It’s not like you won’t have someone of your own someday…maybe even someday _soon_ …like a certain detective…”

“Wha– _Brett_? Shut up, that was just some ill-advised lip-lock performed under intoxicated conditions.”

“Well, you certainly did seem pretty intoxicated by _him_ –”

“Dude, come on –”

“And his heartbeat was –”

“ _No_ , Matt, literally stop talking, or I will kill you and you’ll miss your own wedding, and then Frank will have to honor kill me, and you don’t want that on your conscience.”

“How is _you_ killing _me_ ending up on _my_ conscience?”

“Very carefully.”

Matt sighed, keenly aware that Foggy had managed to steer the conversation neatly away from his love life. Matt was almost ready to let it go – _almost_.

“Ok, Fog. Just keep in mind…I get to be _your_ best man.”

“If you can get the guy to text me back, then sure, the gig’s yours,” Foggy replied, sullen.

Matt winced sympathetically as he retrieved a bowl and a box of cereal. “He’s, uh, incommunicado, huh?”

“Total radio silence since the bachelor party,” Foggy admitted. “Pretty sure he just wants to pretend it all never happened. Which, I mean, is _fine_.” He sounded like it was anything but fine, but Matt didn’t have time to address the issue before Foggy was continuing briskly, “Anyway, he did text _Karen_ to confirm the place and time for the wedding, so you don’t have to worry about what constitutes a quarter of your guest list being a no-show.”

“I’m more worried about a quarter of my guest list constituting an _ass_ ,” Matt replied calmly, splashing some milk on his cereal.

Foggy broke into a wide smile, before answering a little wistfully, “Oh, but he is a _handsome_ ass. And he _has_ a handsome ass.”

“Which _is_ the most important thing,” Matt pointed out sensibly.

“Well, that’s been your policy in life, hasn’t it?” Foggy teased, snatching cereal out of Matt’s bowl, “And it’s worked out pretty well for you.”

Matt laughed a little weakly, as a question rose to his lips, “So, I mean…Frank _is_ , isn’t he? At least… _kinda_ handsome, right?”

“Er….do you…not _know_? I kind of figured that by this point you’ve gotten your paws all over him, face included…”

“Well, _yeah_ , but it’s different. I mean, sure, he _feels_ handsome, but that doesn’t tell me a lot. And people's hearts _do_ speed up around him, but it’s hard to tell if it’s out of attraction or… well, fear.”

“In his case, it's probably both,” Foggy sighed, propping his head up in his hand. “He's definitely got a serial killer kind of blank stare – but he rocks it in his own, special, fucked up way. He’s part of the unlikely and yet apparently stable trend of all superheroes in New York being unfairly attractive.”

“Me included?” Matt grinned.

“You _leading the charge_ , buddy,” Foggy confirmed. “But don’t get a swelled head!” he added, too late, because Matt was giggling and dancing around the counter to Foggy’s side.

“Ah, Fog,” Matt said fondly, ruffling Foggy’s hair, “What would I do without you?”

“Crash and burn,” Foggy theorized, “Forget to buy coffee and die from the lack of caffeine. Start living in a musty, disused fallout shelter somewhere with your crazy fiancé.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know our disused fallout shelter would be _lovely_ ,” Matt retorted.

“Of course it would be. Nothing but the best in disused fallout shelters for Matt Murdock. But, before you go out to stock up on canned peaches and powdered milk for your new home, shall we share one last viewing slash narration of Saturday morning cartoons, in the tradition of our good old college days?”

Matt grabbed his cereal in one hand and Foggy’s arm in the other, and headed for the couch. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

~~~~~

While Matt and Foggy settled down for a nice, relaxing morning together, Claire was pacing the floor, rehearsing what she was going to say to Karen when she came back, over and over under her breath. “I only turned my back for a minute, I’m sure he’ll be back any second, and I’m sure he had a very good reason –”

The key turned in the lock and Karen walked in with a pair of dry-cleaning bags thrown over her arm, and every single excuse Claire had been reciting fled her mind in a dizzying exodus.

“Hey you, so I got our dresses, they’re all good, I know it was such a hassle to have them at the cleaners right till the last minute but –” Karen’s happy stream of words hit a dam as she glanced around the apartment and realized it was distinctly vigilante-less.

“Claire,” she began, her voice that dangerous sort of perky that meant she was three seconds away from going nuclear, “Where’s Frank?”

“He’s…he just, I only turned my back for like a second…I’m sure he’s got good reason for…” Claire quailed under Karen’s terrifying glare. “Ok, I went to the kitchen to get us some coffee, and when I came back he was gone. I have no idea where he went, or why, or when he’ll be coming back.”

Karen closed her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose while Claire waited for her to lower the boom. But when Karen opened her eyes, she just asked in a tone of forced calm, “Did Frank, by chance, _ask you_ to go get some coffee?”

“Um…yeah? He did, said something about needing caffeine….”

“Right. Did he, perchance, look at his phone before requesting coffee?”

“Uh…yes, yes he did. How did you know…?”

Karen looked steadily at a spot a few centimeters to the right of Claire’s shoulder. “I _may_ have helped him install an app of questionable legality that delivers local police radio chatter conveniently to your mobile device…”

“Oh. Oh! So this is _your_ fault!” Claire almost jumped for joy, but shrank back at the return of Karen’s death glare.

“ _Technically_ , it’s whatever criminal’s he’s pursuing’s fault, but yes, I am an accomplice,” Karen admitted tetchily, stepping further into the apartment to drape the dry cleaning neatly over a nearby chair.

“Hey, if you’re an accomplice, then I am too,” Claire assured her, gently taking both of Karen’s hands in her own. “But what I think we need to focus on now is how to locate and retrieve our runaway groom.”

“Agreed.” They stood in calculating silence for a moment, before Claire prompted tentatively, “So…any ideas on that front?”

“We could…go and scout out some crime scenes?” Karen suggested, not sounding sufficiently like she was joking for Claire’s taste.

Claire was saved from having to talk Karen out of this plan, however, by her phone dinging. Claire dug it impatiently out of her pocket, realizing with a twist of dread in her stomach that it could be Matt or Foggy asking how Frank was doing, and _dear God_ how would she answer that, but instead…

“Oh my god, it’s Frank!” Claire stared at the message with a giddy mix of relief and outrage. Karen almost tore the phone out of Claire’s hands in her rush to read the text.

“‘Don’t worry, will be at the church in time,’” she read off the screen in disbelief. “What the _actual fuck_ does he think he’s doing? Is he _crazy_?” Karen glanced up at Claire, who made a face as she replied matter-of-factly, “Well, he kind of _is_ crazy. In a weirdly okay sort of way!” she quickly added, throwing her hands up in defense when Karen looked like she was ready to fight Claire on that charge.

“So…” Claire clicked her tongue and glanced around the room like if she just looked hard enough Frank might materialize behind a potted plant. “I guess the question we have to ask ourselves then, is…do we tell them?”

“Matt and Foggy?”

“Yeah.”

Karen looked a little green at the thought. “Well, we could just…wait?” she offered tentatively, “Just a while? See if he shows up?”

“Right. He might just…come back, like he said,” Claire nodded as if this was a completely reasonable expectation.

“Right. That’s totally possible.”

“Totally.”

“Ok.”

“And…” Claire braced herself, “if he _doesn’t_ come back?”

“Well, then I guess Hell’s Kitchen will be short one vigilante,” Karen replied shortly, dusting some nonexistent lint off of her shoulder.

Claire cocked her head. “Um…what?

“Because if he missed the wedding I would hunt him down and kill him, Claire,” Karen explained patiently, as if this was a simple and obvious fact.

“Oh, yeah,” Claire nodded, giving Karen a reassuring pat on the back, “Right on, sweetheart.”

~~~~~

Six hours later found Karen pacing near that altar of the church, Claire standing slightly more calmly to the side and keeping one eye on her increasingly agitated girlfriend and one eye on Foggy and Matt. Those two seemed to be taking turns consoling one another about the fact that they had, respectively, planned a wedding for a jackass vigilante with no sense of decorum or commitment, and agreed to marry said jackass vigilante with no sense of decorum or commitment. Brett was loitering in a far corner of the church, looking like he was praying for a police emergency that would allow him to escape, while Father Lantom stood calmly aside, going through some papers and looking unconcerned.

It was barely fifteen minutes before the wedding was set to begin, and there was no sign of the absentee groom.

The veneer of calm that Karen had cultivated during the course of the stressful morning had begun to show signs of strain when she’d been forced to admit to Matt that she’d misplaced his fiancé, and it was definitely cracking now that Frank appeared intent on remaining MIA right up till the eleventh hour.

“Karen, babe, it’ll be ok. He’s a grown man, he can take care of himself,” Claire reached out to gently bring Karen’s pacing to a halt, rubbing her arms comfortingly before adding, “It’s not like he’s _Matt_.”

Karen’s laugh seemed to take her by surprise. “You’re right,” she agreed with a smile, breathing deeply and sinking against Claire’s side, “It’ll be ok. It’ll all be just _fine_.”

“All this stress and shit…we should just elope,” Claire murmured offhandedly, catching sight of Matt and Foggy collapsing in sync into one of the pews, heads in their hands.

“Yeah,” Karen agreed, winding her arms around Claire’s waist, “Let’s just take off for Vegas, screw all of this.”

They turned their heads to smile at each other, and then both froze at the same moment.

“Did you just –”

“Did you mean that –”

They stared at each other.

“Did we just…” Claire began.

“…sort of, propose to each other?” Karen finished. She blinked at Claire, looking shell-shocked and slightly unsteady on her feet.

“K, I am _so_ sorry,” Claire burst out, feeling more than a little bowled over, “It’s just been on my mind, and it slipped out, and I was gonna do a whole _thing_ , flowers and a ring and the perfect scenery, maybe bring you up to that lake cabin we visited that you liked so much…”

“ _You_? _I_ was gonna do it!” Karen exclaimed, hands flying up to gesture emphatically at herself. “I already made reservations at that super fancy Italian place you love that we totally can’t afford! I was gonna wear my blue dress, you know the one.”

Claire did know the one. She’d had a lot of fun taking that dress _off_. “God, I can’t _believe_ this. We’re worse than _those_ idiots!” Claire flapped one hand towards Matt and the other in what they could only guess to be Frank’s direction.

“Yeah, well, at least our proposal didn’t involve Swedish furniture,” Karen noted, dazed. 

Claire did a double take and laughed, “What?” But Karen’s eyes had gotten big and serious and she took one of Claire’s hands in her own and asked, “But, I mean, did you mean it? Like, really, actually, not just sort of…vaguely, or generally, or whatever. You want to _marry_ me?”

Claire squinted a little before answering. “Well…duh.”

Karen grabbed Claire’s face in both her hands, diving forward to capture her mouth in a fierce kiss. Her weight threw Claire off balance, and they both went tumbling down to the stone floor in a tangle of limbs and high heels. Karen pulled back, maneuvering herself upright so she was poised over Claire, her long blond curls tickling Claire’s cheek. “When this is over,” she panted, “You and I are going to have a talk. And then you’re gonna get me flowers, and we’ll go that ridiculously expensive restaurant, and we’ll pick out rings together, and then we’ll go up to that cabin and this time I’ll have you _five_ times on that bearskin rug.”

“Um…yes. Yes! A very enthusiastic _yes_.”

“Good. Well. I think we should keep this between us for now.”

“Yeah.”

“Because this is Matt and Frank’s wedding, it’s their day.”

“Yes.”

“Also, we should probably stop making out on the floor of a church.”

“Definitely.”

Karen kneeled, and helped drag Claire up and to her feet. Then she straightened the skirt of her dress, adjusted the straps of Claire’s, and asked in a pragmatic tone of voice, "Now, would you help me find some sort of heavy blunt instrument?"

"Uh, sure,” Claire nodded readily, quite prepared at the moment to follow Karen on a quest for the damn Holy Grail if that’s what she wanted. “May I ask why?"

"Well, if Frank doesn't show up in the next three minutes I really am going to have to bludgeon him to death. Just on principle."

Claire grinned and twined their fingers together as they set off. "Sounds like a plan."

On the other end of the church, too distracted by their own drama to notice Karen and Claire’s, Foggy turned to Matt and asked, “You okay?”

“Yup,” Matt lied blandly.

“Really? Because we’re T minus _five_ here, and we’re still short one groom.”

Matt hmmed mildly, and focused on not shouting or punching anything.

“And I’m pretty sure we can’t just go on without him,” Foggy added.

“I don’t know,” Matt contradicted him lightly, “Karen’s pretty determined.”

Matt tilted his head to the side irritably as the roar of a motorcycle pricked at his ears. He tried to tune it out, but it seemed to be growing closer… He refocused on the thundering engine, scanning up above the mechanical racket, where he was able to pick out a familiar heartbeat.

His shoulders sagged with relief as he swore fervently under his breath, “Fucking, _finally_.”

The roar grew to a volume the others in the room could hear, heads turning towards the entrance as it abruptly cut off and died. About five seconds later, the doors to the church burst open, revealing Frank standing there, sliced and bloodied and burnt, but otherwise mostly intact. The same could not be said of his tux, and the first thing Matt heard other than Frank’s heavy breathing was Foggy muttering, “There goes the deposit on the rental suit.”

Frank started marching up the aisle, and there was a heavy clang as Karen set down a mean looking iron wrench on a nearby pew, and headed for an intercept course. She arrived at the head of the church a few steps behind Frank, but before she could open her mouth to give him the dressing down of a lifetime, he held up a hand and announced, “Let’s get this show on the road, I’ve got about ten minutes before half the FBI rains down on this place.” 

“ _Frank_ ,” Matt admonished despairingly, feeling punchy with an intoxicating combination of relief and exasperation.

“Yeah, I missed you too, Red,” Frank smirked, leaning in for a kiss. Matt was eager to reciprocate, but found himself being dragged bodily away by Foggy, who’d been standing half astonished half furious next to Matt as Frank had appeared, but who had now seen fit to leap into action.

“You can’t kiss the groom _before_ the wedding, Matt!” Foggy hissed, using his full weight to hold Matt back, “That’s just _not allowed_ , for Chri—,” Foggy cut himself off with a nervous glance up at the cross, “I mean for fuc—, I mean… _gosh darn it Matthew_!”

“Okay, okay!” Matt covered his mouth with one hand, holding the other up to indicate the perfectly respectful space between him and Frank. Karen took the opportunity to leap forward and jam a lily in Frank’s lapel, looking like she wished the stem was sturdy enough to stab him with. Claire stood coolly by, holding her and Karen’s bouquets (red roses, a traditional choice of flower at Foggy’s behest, to counter Matt’s death-lilies, as Foggy’d taken to calling them.)

“Ladies and gentlemen?” Father Lantom stepped forward, opening his Bible with a merry swish, “Are we ready to begin?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Matt, Frank, Foggy, and Karen all replied in unison.

They took their places, Matt and Frank side by side in front of Father Lantom, while Foggy took up a position on Matt’s right, Karen on Frank’s left. Claire joined Karen, hooking their arms together and sharing a brief, intimate smile before they turned their focus back to the wedding at hand. Brett slouched over to Foggy’s side, where he stood in grumpy silence before holding out a hand to Foggy. Foggy stared at the proffered hand, then at Brett, and then back at the hand, before breaking into a dazzling smile and eagerly snatching it up.

“Dear friends, we are gathered here today, to celebrate the union of Matthew Murdock and Frank Castle.” Matt and Frank joined hands, and Father Lantom turned to the Corinthians in his Bible, though he knew the words so well his eyes barely flickered down to the page before he began, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Father Lantom glanced at the assembled with a knowing sort of smile as he continued, “If there is anyone present who has just cause why this couple should not be united let them speak now or forever hold their peace.” For a moment, Matt’s heart stopped, and he felt certain that someone or something would tear through the church and rip this moment away from them. He gripped Frank’s hands a little more tightly, and felt a reassuring squeeze in return.

A moment later, the church hadn’t exploded, and no one had fallen out of the sky to declare this wedding a disgrace, and Father Lantom was saying, “Now, I’m told you both have your own vows?” They nodded. They’d agreed fairly early on that the traditional “till death do us part” really wasn’t right for them.

Frank cleared his throat and shuffled, thumbs brushing over the backs of Matt’s hands as he began in a low, clear voice: “When I first met you, I was sure that this city wasn’t big enough for the two of us. Now, I’m positive that together, the city won’t know what hit it.” Matt’s controlled expression slipped into a wide smile at Frank’s words, and his nerves began to abate as Frank continued, “I realized that you’ve got a window into my soul that I never meant to let anyone have. You _know_ who I am. And you love me not just despite it, but… _because_ of it. And I still can’t wrap my head around that sometimes, but I know it would be insane if I didn’t do everything in my power to keep you. So, here I am. I promise that I will always come back to you, and I will always love you, and I will take care of you in every way I know how for however long I have left on this Earth.”

Frank’s breathing was steady as he finished his vows, but Matt felt like someone had his throat in a chokehold. If it hadn’t been for years of practice in public speaking under fire in hostile courtrooms, he never would have been able to force his voice to cooperate and begin: "You make sure I get at least one square meal every day, even if it means you have to cook more often than not, because otherwise we both know I’d try and live off of soda crackers and leftover rhubarb crisp. You scared my neighbors into taking out their trash every day instead of letting it pile up, because you knew that the smell was bothering me. You get out of bed in the dead of winter to kick the radiator when it makes that gasping rattle that drives me crazy. And you do all of that, while making exactly as much fun of me as I deserve, no more and no less...” Matt sucked in a breath, voice growing stronger as he fell into the rhythm of the speech. “Because of you, I’ve learned to be a better person, and see my life through another’s eyes…as the saying goes.” Foggy stifled a laugh next to Matt, and Frank grinned a little wider. “And I know we might not get to grow _old_ together, but I’m still looking forward to getting to grow with you,” Matt smiled up at Frank and didn’t even care that a tear was slipping out from beneath the cover of his glasses, “I’m _excited_ to see where life takes us, because we’re gonna face the world together, and I can’t imagine anything better.”

By this point, everyone was crying to some degree except Frank, and Matt was pretty sure that Frank only had dry eyes through the sheer force of his iron will.

“May the Lord bless these rings,” Father Lantom began, gesturing to Foggy who quickly fumbled in the jacket of his suit for the small velvet bag, “which you give to each other, as a sign of your love and fidelity.” Foggy tipped the rings into Matt and Frank’s hands. They’d briefly considered getting new rings, but in the end decided to just use the same ones Karen had bought for their first, ridiculous wedding. It only seemed right.

“Do you, Matthew Murdock, take this man, Frank Castle, to be your husband?” Father Lantom asked, and Matt had to bite his tongue to keep from shouting “yes!” before the priest was done speaking. “Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him?”

“I do.” Matt slid the ring over Frank’s finger, hands shaking slightly no matter how much he tried to calm them.

“And do you, Frank Castle, take this man, Matthew Murdock, to be your husband? Do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him?”

“I do.” Frank gently slipped the ring onto Matt’s finger, hands steady like always, steady where Matt’s couldn’t be.

“Then by the power vested in me, I pronounce you… _married_.”

It was like the whole room had been holding their breath, and now they were letting it all out at once. The tension snapped, and Foggy let out a whoop of success at the same time that Karen began to cheer.

“You may now kiss,” Father Lantom announced with a smile in his voice.

Frank wasted no time in doing just that, taking hold of Matt’s face with one hand and his waist with the other, pulling him in for ferocious kiss, complete with teeth and tongue and all the things one probably shouldn’t engage in in front of their priest, in the middle of a church. Matt didn’t give a single damn and sank into the embrace. After a few moments, Matt grinned mischievously against Frank’s lips, and Frank didn’t have time to react before Matt was dipping him in a kiss that rivaled the one Frank had bowed him in a year ago in that bland back room of the city clerk’s office.

Father Lantom laughed good-naturedly, “Ah, youth.” Claire whistled appreciatively while Karen devolved into giggles; Foggy laughed a little hysterically and held onto Brett’s arm for support.

Frank and Matt finally broke apart, and Matt’s smile froze as he picked up on the all-too-familiar wail of sirens coming up from about dozen blocks south of the church.

“Hey,” he murmured into Frank’s cheek, “I think we need to make our getaway.” Frank nodded, shoulders straightening as Matt turned to Father Lantom.

“Thank you so much, Father, for everything. I’m sorry, but we actually have to go –”

“There’s no need to explain,” Lantom gently cut him off with a beneficent wave of his hand, “You friend, Mr. Nelson, illuminated some of the details of your…situation.” He put a kindly hand on Matt’s shoulder and continued, “What happened here today was for you and your friends alone to share. No one else has the right to any details, Matthew, about your spiritual marriage to a Mr. Francis Castiglione – that is your birth name, is it not, Frank?”

Matt choked on a laugh as Frank growled, “I know I shouldn’t have let the pipsqueak know about that.”

“So, you run along, and enjoy your new lives together. I wish you the best.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Matt said fervently, but Father Lantom waved him off. “No, no, with everything you’ve done…I think this city owed you one.”

Matt smiled, and Frank nodded briskly, getting ahold of Matt’s arm and marching him quickly towards the back of the church, with Foggy cheerfully tugging Brett along behind them, and Karen and Claire bringing up the rear.

The sirens had almost reached their party’s ears (in particular, Brett’s, although Foggy was doing his best to fill them with loud, mindless chatter) before they were settled into the van they’d rented for the occasion and making their hasty departure from the church parking lot.

Matt grinned as he heard some of the cop cars come screaming to a halt near the church, men piling out and moving in a standard search pattern of the street and buildings. A team entered the church, and Matt could make out a deep, professional voice asking Father Lantom, “Have you seen this man?” He was presumably holding up a picture, but Lantom just laughed and said, “I’m sorry, but I misplaced my glasses earlier – I haven’t been able to see a thing clearly all day!”

Just as their van began to move out of auditory range, Matt heard Father Lantom replying to another of the officer’s questions in a mild tone, “I was just officiating a wedding for young Matthew and Francis, a perfectly dear couple…”

A squad car screamed past them and even Foggy’s bravest attempts at distraction couldn’t stop Brett from sitting up and taking notice.

He stared after the flashing red and blue lights, then turned a suspicious glare on Foggy, who grinned rather sheepishly even as he said brightly, “There is an awful lot of crime in this town, isn’t there?”

Brett’s squint turned to burn a hole in the back of the driver’s seat, where Frank was guiding the vehicle through traffic with one hand on the wheel, looking entirely unconcerned. Matt was fidgeting in the passenger seat, and Karen and Claire were whispering furiously back and forth to one another.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Brett muttered to himself, before putting his hands over his ears and starting to hum the _Star Trek_ theme song while staring pointedly out the window. Foggy spared him a look of open adoration before leaning forward and joining the huddle of law-breakers and accomplices to discuss their plans.

“Won’t they be looking for us?” Claire hissed with an uneasy glance in the direction of their local officer of the law, “We can’t just show up at reservations under Matt or Frank’s names…”

“But the reservations aren’t under those names,” Foggy clarified with a touch of pride in his voice, “They’re all under Bruce Knight.”

“Uh, why?” Matt asked, eyebrows raised.

“Because I was watching a Batman movie when I made them, and I lack creativity?”

“No, I mean…why didn’t you make them under one of our names in the first place?”

Foggy just pointed wordlessly at Frank. Frank shrugged. “I thought better safe than sorry. There was always a chance that today might get a little… illegal. So, I told Nelson to make all our reservations under aliases. No need for my actions to ruin our day.”

Matt laid a hand over his heart. “Frank. That’s so sweet.”

“Shut up, it’s practical.”

“No, it’s _heart-wrenchingly_ sweet.”

Claire and Karen nodded their vigorous agreement in sync behind Matt.

“It’s not,” Frank maintained stubbornly.

“That’s alright, it’s just one of the reasons I love you,” Matt teased, leaning in to kiss Frank’s cheek, which effectively stemmed the flow of denial. Karen aww’ed and Claire wrapped an arm around her shoulders; Foggy also aww’ed, and tried to wrap an arm around Brett’s shoulders. Since Brett was still doing his utmost to ignore everything that was happening inside the vehicle, he balked in surprise at the unexpected touch. He pushed Foggy away instinctively, but finally relented with an eyeroll after being subjected to Foggy’s most potent puppy dog eyes.

“So…” Frank glared out at the road as he addressed Matt, “You aren’t mad at me for showing up at the last minute?”

“Well, I really did reconsider my stance on the seventh commandment, for a minute,” Matt replied with mock severity.

“But I made it, just like I promised you,” Frank shot a glance over at Matt and visibly relaxed when he saw Matt’s affectionate grin.

“That you did...” Matt agreed, leaning in to kiss him again, which Frank tolerated for a minute before shoving him away, grumbling about “not distracting the driver.” But he didn’t complain when Matt kept a hand on his thigh for the rest of the drive.

Foggy directed them into the parking lot of a small, but dignified seeming hotel Matt had never heard of. They all piled out of the car, Matt taking Frank’s arm, and Brett peeping suspiciously at their surroundings before lowering his hands from his ears and following Foggy out the door.

After Foggy exchanged a few words with the woman at the desk, a peppy receptionist materialized to lead them back to a private room. She dropped them in a lovely space, richly wallpapered and elegant, and told them that dinner would be ready to serve in a few minutes, before pulling the double doors neatly closed behind her.

Frank let out a pleased grunt at the sight before him, which Matt could roughly gather to be a round table laid with linen and fancy silverware.

“This is…this is great,” Frank said to Foggy, gruffly, “Thanks.” He clapped a hand awkwardly to Foggy’s shoulder, before striding away to inspect the table’s centerpiece.

“He really is a closet romantic,” Matt confided in a stage whisper to Foggy.

“I am not!” Frank growled, adjusting one of the flower arrangements.

“Oh, good,” Brett had his phone out, and was pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. “A notification of an APB out on one Frank Castle. Considered armed and extremely dangerous.”

The whole room froze dead still for the minute that passed before Brett continued in a bland tone, “Good thing I wasn’t attending Frank Castle’s wedding. Good thing I was at _Francis Castiglione’s_ wedding.” Everyone relaxed by degrees as Brett turned to stare very deliberately _away_ from the happy couple. Foggy produced a glass of wine which Brett immediately downed half of. “Top it off, Nelson,” he declared, holding the glass out, “I’m gonna need to be a lot more drunk to get through this evening.”

Matt stepped cautiously forward to thank him for his discretion, but Brett shut him down before he could get more than a word out, saying “For one night only, I’m as blind as you Murdock.”

A welcome distraction arrived in the form of the food. A small army of waiters flurried around the table, setting and moving and adjusting dishes, before disappearing with a speed and quiet that the Hand would envy. Foggy leaned into Matt’s shoulder to whisper, “I may have chosen this place on the basis of what the Internet called ‘discretion.’”

Matt tilted his head to respond, “Does that mean that this place is usually booked up with mobsters?”

Foggy shrugged and replied evasively, “Define ‘mobster’…”

Mobster-funded or not, the food was incredible; it met even with Matt’s rigorous standards. The cake was ferried in after the second course, and every sighted person in the room found their eyes being dragged inescapably towards its three-tiered chocolate glory. Matt didn’t have it any easier, the thick scent of sugar taunting him as he tried to focus on the really quite delicious chicken on his plate.

The room’s collective focus on the cake, however, was broken when Foggy stood after the last course and announced that it was time for toasts. Everyone groaned, and Karen just pointed towards the trolley and said plaintively, “ _Cake_!”

“Cake _after_ all of us say a few words,” Foggy declared, his tone leaving no room for argument.

“ _All_ of us?” Brett repeated doubtfully. He looked mutinous, so naturally, Foggy turned to him first.

Brett sighed, much aggrieved, but stood. “I don’t know you guys that well,” he told Matt and Frank candidly, “And I still don’t really know why I’m here. But I gotta say, once you get past all the weirdness, you seem to make a pretty damn good couple. So, congratulations Matt and… _Francis_.” Brett raised his champagne once in their direction and then threw back the whole glass.

As everyone drank to his toast, Brett slumped back down in his seat and Claire stood, holding her champagne aloft. “To the craziest couple in New York. I hope you get through your honeymoon without having to call me to stitch you up!” She grinned and hoisted her glass in the air, and then followed Brett’s example, tossing back the entirety of its contents before smacking it back down on the table.

Karen watched Claire sit down with a big love-struck smile, as Foggy pushed his chair back and raised his glass towards his best friend. “Matthew Michael Murdock, you ridiculous, reckless, witless saint. I always thought that if I was going to be doing this, you’d have some glamorous European supermodel on your arm, at the very least.” Matt chuckled and brushed his hand along Frank’s arm, as Foggy continued, “But you took a different road. A _very_ different road. I would emphasize the overwhelming difference of this road.” Frank growled and tightened his grip on his fork in a manner likely meant to indicate he was ready and willing to use it as a deadly weapon, but Foggy paid him no mind. “And a year ago, I would have said you were crazy. As a matter of fact, I would _still_ say you’re crazy. Just, not because of who you’ve chosen to spend your life with.” Foggy turned to address the man in question, saying bluntly, “Frank, I'm not sure I'll ever really get along with you. But, we agree completely on one very important thing: Matt Murdock deserves to be happy. And you're the person he needs for that to happen. So, one way or the other, I'll learn to like you. And, if necessary, I'll help defend you against murder charges, though please, try and keep those to a minimum.” He lifted his glass enthusiastically in the air, “To Frank and Matt!”

Karen stood gracefully as everyone drank to Foggy’s toast. “I didn’t meet either of you under the most… _ideal_ circumstances,” she began lightly, checking Foggy’s shoulder with her hip when he muttered, “ _Understatement_.” “But,” she forged on, “I am so glad that we _did_ meet, because to have missed out on getting to know both of you would have been a tragedy. And getting to be a part of what you two have built together…that has been an honor. Now, I could tell stories about Matt and Frank that range from embarrassing to downright illegal…” Matt groaned and Brett let his forehead bang onto the table, “But I won’t,” she assured them with a grin. “Because the only story worth telling is the first story, their first real adventure _together_ , and you were all there in one way or another when it happened. I found these two idiots in Matt’s apartment,” she gestured with a fondness belied by her words to Matt and Frank, “And then I met the woman who I’d eventually realize is the love of my life.” She reached out to brush her fingers gently against Claire’s cheek, and Claire leaned into the touch. “Then came Foggy, to bring some common sense to the whole affair,” she put her other hand on Foggy’s shoulder, and he beamed. “And finally, Brett was there at the courthouse that day when we all worked together to bring down Reyes, and restore justice in our city.” Brett peered up from the table, looking slightly less like he wanted to drown himself in the champagne bucket. “This wedding has done more than bring just you two together, it’s brought _all_ of us together, and for that, I’ll never be able to thank you enough. To Matt and Frank!” She raised her glass, and the table echoed her sentiment, more than one person surreptitiously dabbing away a tear or two.

To Matt’s eternal surprise, Frank stood next, without any prompting. “Thank you,” he told the assembled people solemnly. “Thank you for being here and for everything you’ve done. If you’d told me a year ago that I was gonna be tying the knot with _this_ guy, I probably would’ve plugged you just on principle. But now…it doesn’t even seem crazy, which is the craziest thing of all. So, thank you, all of you…for giving me a life to live, and someone to love.” He raised his glass about an inch in the air before knocking it back and dropping down into his seat with his words till hanging in the air. His shoulders hunched and he didn’t seem keen on meeting anyone’s eye.

“Did you want to say something?” Frank muttered to Matt, who was clutching at the edge of the table and arguing sternly with his tear ducts that no, in fact, he really did not need to start crying right now.

“Nope, I….” Matt had to swallow hard before he could finish, “I think you covered it.”

There was a moment of silence before Karen offered hopefully, “So…cake?”

This was met with thunderous approval, and so they crowded around the orange chocolate frosted masterpiece as Frank picked up a knife and held it uncomfortably, looking as if he wasn’t at all sure how to use it on a non-living object. Matt covered Frank’s hand with his own and gently guided it into the fluffy cake. Matt delicately picked up the thin slice and held it aloft, glasses flashing as he grinned at Frank with wicked intention.

Too late, Frank cottoned on and began to warn him, “If you try and shove that in my mouth, Murdock, so help me I’ll –”

Matt promptly shoved the cake in Frank’s mouth with a gleeful call of, “You’ll _what_?”

This led to Frank chasing Matt around much of the room, armed with a chocolate-y handful of cake, eyes blazing with vengeance as Matt ducked easily around scattered chairs, slipping neatly over the table top and dancing around Frank’s jabs. Karen and Foggy squealed a little and giggled a lot, while Claire rolled her eyes at their antics and Brett just watched Matt with a dumbfounded expression and muttered to himself, “How is he doing that? _How_ is he doing that?”

They finally settled down enough to eat their cake in relative peace (though it was likely that the deposit on Matt’s suit was also, now, a loss). After a while, Foggy went over to the sound equipment tucked in the corner and fiddled with the dials until a soft, jazzy intro filled the room.

Matt beamed and dragged a reluctant Frank to his feet. “The newlyweds having the first dance is a time-honored _tradition_ ,” he wheedled, tugging on Frank’s arm until they were standing in an open space that would do just fine as a dancefloor.

Frank grumbled his assent, letting Matt pull him close and guide Frank’s left hand onto his waist, clasping his right in his own. They swayed to the music, and Matt was quietly amused by how Frank was (clearly unconsciously) humming along to the song in a distracted baritone. Matt didn’t recognize the tune until it reached the chorus, then he turned to Foggy and laughed, “Really? ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square?’ Kind of cheesy, don’t you think?”

“Hey, _he_ picked the song,” Foggy pointed an accusing finger at Frank. Matt’s mouth fell open in delighted surprise.

“Traitor,” Frank growled in Foggy’s direction, but he was too busy cajoling Brett to his feet to notice or care.

“Aw, Frank…and you still deny that you’re a romantic?” Matt purred in his ear, grin tickling Frank’s skin.

“Shut _up_ , already,” was Frank’s mumbled response as he turned his head to silence Matt with a kiss.

By the end of the evening there were three couples on the floor: there was Matt and Frank not bothering to pretend they were still dancing as they made out near the decimated cake platter, Claire and Karen giggling as they twirled tipsily around the room, and Foggy and Brett, the latter of whom kept snorting laughter as Foggy whispered things in his ear.

When Matt and Frank looked to be locked into a course that would take them firmly out of the realm of public acceptability, Karen decided to break up the party before everyone was scarred.

“Okay, guys, let’s hear it one last time for the newlyweds… Congratulations to Matt and Frank!”

The four guests managed to make more noise than four people really should as they cheered the happy couple, Matt smiling radiantly with Frank by his side, managing to dredge up an expression that was at least not a frown. And then the two were finally escorted to a taxi, which took them to their final honeymoon destination where their luggage and ten days of vacation awaited them.

The cab pulled up in front of The Carlyle, of course. There was no denying at this point that they both had shades of a hopeless romantic in them, and neither of them had any desire to leave the city or visit warmer climes. (Though Matt had been highly amused imagining Frank standing grumpily on a sandy beach somewhere, arms crossed and a Beretta shoved in the waistband of his swim trunks.)

In a fit of nostalgia, Matt had tried to sneak a deck of cards into his luggage, but Frank had caught him and produced a lighter out of nowhere, setting them on fire without hesitation. “ _No more cards_ ,” he’d growled as Matt’s nose twitched with distaste at the smell of burning plastic. Frank did consent, however, to bringing a variety of books, and Matt looked forward to late nights of Frank’s low, rumbling tone marching through the paragraphs, one hand turning the pages while one carded lazily through Matt’s hair. And, of course, he was eagerly anticipating having truly spectacular amounts of no-holds-barred, mind-blowing sex.

“I hope there aren’t any grappling hooks involved this time,” Matt remarked dryly as they stepped into the same room they’d been locked so unwillingly in last year.

“Aw, Red, c’mon,” Frank drawled, coming up behind Matt to wrap his arms around his waist and hook his chin over his shoulder. “What’s a honeymoon without grappling hooks?”

“I think I could do without the swinging from rooftops, generally,” Matt added as an afterthought, leaning back into Frank’s chest.

“No swinging from rooftops, either? Shit, we’ve been married five minutes and the romance is already dead.”

“You killed even the _possibility_ of romance when your opening gambit was shooting me in the face,” Matt pointed out, tone lacking any real reproach.

Frank nodded wisely, “That’s probably true.”

Matt smiled, and turned in Frank’s hold to capture his lips in a kiss, before leaning their foreheads together and whispering, “But thanks for resurrecting the romance, just for today.”

“My pleasure, Red.”

~~~~~

Ten days later found Matt walking back into the office with a bounce in his step, the shine not yet off his honeymoon glow. Even when he picked up an unfamiliar heartbeat lingering in the waiting area of their office, an atmosphere of tension growing around the stranger, his smile didn’t slip.

“Hello!” Matt greeted the occupants of Nelson and Murdock cheerily, setting his cane in the corner like it was any ordinary day.

“Hey, Matt,” Karen replied in a pleasant tone, not showing a hint of the nerves that were clear in her heartrate. “We have a guest here, a Mr. –”

“ _Agent_ Harold Driver,” the stranger cut in, his coat swishing as he pulled something from his pocket and held it up in front of Matt.

Matt just smiled beatifically and waited until Foggy jumped in, amusement clear in his voice, “Uh, _Agent_ Driver…you know he can’t see that.”

“Oh, are you showing me your badge?” Matt asked innocently. The agent grumbled an apology as Matt turned to ask Karen and Foggy. “I assume you checked his credentials?”

“Yup,” Foggy replied cheerily, “He’s FBI, the real deal.”

“Well, real deal FBI Agent Driver, what can I do for you?” Matt inquired pleasantly.

Agent Driver took a moment to respond, and Matt just smiled agreeably, enjoying how the other man’s annoyance was ratcheting up almost audibly. “I’m here to ask you about the matter of your ex-husband, Frank Castle.”

“Oh, _that_ ,” Matt chuckled, making his exaggeratedly careful way to one of the chairs in front of Karen’s desk and leaning his weight against it. “What do you want to know? I thought ex-District Attorney Reyes’ prosecution was already well underway, with Mr. Castle’s testimony as the pièce de résistance.”

“This isn’t about Reyes, this is about _Castle_. He’s a wanted man, Mr. Murdock, and you were the last person to have documented… _intimate_ contact with him.” Driver’s emphasis on the word ‘intimate,’ made his meaning unmistakable.

Matt chuckled again, pleased when the sound made Driver’s heartrate jump with irritation. “Oh, then I’m afraid I can’t help you much, Agent. Mr. Castle and I were never _intimate_ , as you say…he was our client, under our protection, and that’s all. I admit, we may have abused the institution of marriage a bit in our attempts to keep him safe from harm while we were waiting to deliver him to the Attorney General to testify, but I assure you, our actions were perfectly legal. And, ah, platonic, if that’s of significance to your case.”

“Uh huh…” Agent Driver sounded supremely unimpressed. “So, how was the honeymoon?”

“Lovely, thank you,” Matt replied without missing a beat.

“And how is your husband…Mr. Castiglione, I believe was the name your priest gave me?”

“My priest? I certainly hope you weren’t harassing _him_ in your, quite honestly, _misguided_ attempts at investigation?”

“I wasn’t _harassing_ anyone, I was doing my _job_ ,” Driver growled, “During the course of which I learned that _you_ married someone who meets Frank Castle’s general description on the 27 th of August.”

“If by general description you mean ‘tall’ and ‘male,’ then I would agree. Otherwise, I can only say that my _Francis_ is quite a different man than _your_ Frank Castle.”

Driver squinted hard at Matt before responding, “You realize that being married to a criminal does _not_ mean that you can’t be legally charged with being an accomplice, right?”

“As a lawyer, I am quite aware of that, though I don’t see how it has much to do with me.”

Agent Driver’s blood pressure was going through the roof, and Matt had to tamp down on the impulse to ask him if he’d talked to a doctor about that.

“What it has to do with _you_ , Mr. Murdock, is that if you have legally bound yourself to a wanted fugitive –”

“I think you’ll find that the ceremony you’re speaking of was quite _personal_ in nature, with no legal attachments to concern you. And, of course, there’s the fact that I have not seen Frank Castle even once in the past year.”

“Alright.” Agent Driver ran his tongue across his teeth, his hands going to his hips. “I’ll play your game. You haven’t seen Frank Castle? Fine. Where can I find this Mr. Castiglione of yours?”

“No idea,” Matt answered honestly. “I’m his husband, not his keeper. We have a…very _open_ relationship,” Matt admitted, leaning just this side of too close into the agent’s personal space.

Driver coughed and took a step back. “Fine, Murdock. Have it your way. But know that I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he warned, pointing a finger uselessly at Matt as he backed out of the office.

“Very well. Have a nice day, Agent!” Matt waved towards the space a few feet to Driver’s left for good measure, smiling blandly all the while.

Agent Driver grumbled something rude under his breath and stomped off. Matt stepped forward to click the door shut behind him and waited to hear his steps clattering down to the ground floor. He raised a hand when Foggy made to speak, taking a moment to scan the room, listening carefully for the tinny hiss of any recording or monitoring devices the agent might have seen fit to plant on the premises.

Matt dropped his hand when he was satisfied the coast was clear, and Foggy remarked with a note of admiration in his voice, “ _Wow_. You lied scarily well.”

“I guess it’s all that practice you had with us,” Karen pointed out, tone a little prickly.

Matt pouted at her before replying, “What lies? I _don’t_ know where Frank is, he ran off hours ago. And I didn’t feel the need to tell the good agent that I know where he’ll be _tonight_. And, it is a completely true statement that I have not, in the past year, _seen_ Frank Castle. Granted, I’ve _never_ seen him, but…” Matt trailed off with a smirk as Karen rolled her eyes and groaned, Foggy punching Matt’s shoulder lightly as he passed him to go to his office.

“Alright, alright, enough fun and games, people,” Foggy gestured for Matt to follow him with exaggerated impatience. “Your honeymoon’s over, Matt, time to get back to work!”

Matt trailed after Foggy with a contented smile, feeling ready to go up against anything. Agent Driver didn’t scare him. In fact, nothing seemed particularly frightening anymore; not the mountains of paperwork waiting for him, not the threat of federal officials nosing into his business, and not the thought of long days in court and longer nights on the streets. After all, no matter what manner of disaster was lurking around the corner, he wouldn’t be facing it alone. 

~~~~~

“Now, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?” Matt drawled, dropping down behind Frank where he was lurking on a rooftop overlooking a row of decrepit warehouses.

Frank didn’t even flinch at Matt’s sudden arrival, just firing back, “Looking for someone who has better lines than you.”

“I’m _wounded_ ,” Matt deadpanned, leaning his hip against the low wall Frank was peering over. He reached out with his senses to try and get an idea of what was occupying Frank’s attention and found nothing.

“There’s no one there,” he informed Frank with a light kick to his side.

“I know. But there might be soon.”

Frank proceeded to ignore Matt entirely for the next ten minutes, at which point Matt’s meager supply of patience ran out and he let out an overly aggrieved sigh. “You _really_ want to waste your night staring at an empty warehouse? You could be looking at much nicer things…” He smirked hopefully down at Frank.

Frank’s eyes didn’t even waver from the binoculars he was staring intently through as his hand reached up to grab Matt’s ass.

“Hey!” Matt swatted him away, “I said _look_!” But then he promptly mixed his message by kneeling down next to Frank and knocking his assorted weaponry aside, crawling right into his personal space.

Frank finally tore his gaze away from the distinctly uninteresting warehouse across the way, bringing the full force of his laser focus down on Matt. He bowed his head, lips tantalizingly close to Matt’s but not quite there as he took advantage of Matt’s distraction and slipped a hand around his waist to clamp his fingers more firmly down on his ass. Matt squeaked indignantly but then relaxed, reaching back to give Frank’s hand a friendly pat as he scooted a little closer. “Hey, now,” Matt warned Frank, lips curling in wicked grin, “I’ll have to tell my husband if you keep getting handsy like this…”

“Mmm,” Frank rumbled against Matt’s cheek, “Maybe I should watch it then, I hear he’s a jealous guy.”

“A little. Only because he cares.”

“He should. Wouldn’t want to let a _fine_ thing like you slip through his fingers.” Frank emphasized his words with a deliberate squeeze, and Matt was laughing as he leaned into a hot, open-mouthed kiss. Hardly a minute passed, however, before Matt’s head was tilting instinctively up at the sound of the hammer on a .45 being pulled back.

“You got something?” Frank asked, tone businesslike even as his hand continued stroke up Matt’s lower back and down to his thigh.

“Robbery on the corner of 52nd and 11th. Two assailants. Hitting a grocery store, I think.”

“Alright,” Frank heaved himself to his feet, and then gestured grandly across the rooftops with the barrel of his automatic, “After you, Red.”

Matt grinned, the sharp smile that was just between him and Frank and the city, and leapt neatly up and onto the thin ledge of the roof, dashing along between a harmless stumble and a messy death with no fear.

“Think you can keep up?” Matt called over his shoulder to Frank before executing an unnecessarily complicated flip over an air duct.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Frank shot back, a gun in his hand and a grin on his face, “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

And they raced each other across the rooftops, two shadows in the night who’d finally found where they were meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> *dabs tear* I can’t believe this story’s finally over. It’s been haunting me for almost two months, but I’m glad I finally get to share it with all of you! *hugs*  
> Some ephemera and references:  
> Here’s the real magazine article on marriage that inspired the one in the story: http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/questions-to-consider-before-getting-married-whether-youre-straight-or-gay/276291/  
> Matt basically wrestled lions in the Waid run, so I imagine fond memories of this moment are why he wants to go to the zoo so badly: https://joeblogscomics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/dardevil-battling-lions.jpg  
> The version of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” played at the reception was Bobby Darin’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKvu-8Ac0x0  
> And finally, Agent Driver is the name of the guy who investigated the possibility of Matt Murdock being Daredevil in the Bendis and Maleev run.  
> Thanks to everyone for all the beautiful comments and support, you’re the reason this sequel happened! Let me know what you thought about it <3


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